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Untreated mental health disorders among moms inflict a massive toll on families, the economy




On her first night as a mother, Jennifer Kim Lai awoke in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and found her newborn daughter, Elyse, choking on her own vomit.

Still in the hospital, Lai immediately called the nurse, and although the crisis was quickly resolved, it
parked a long year of anxiety for the new mother. “I had a combination of emotions and didn’t know if
it was normal or not,” she said.
She didn’t ask anyone for help. “I was always scared that something might happen to her. I cried
every night, and felt extremely out of control, like everything was a mistake,” Lai said. But she never
told anyone how she felt.


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