The main purpose of Olga Okhapkina’s capstone project is awareness of postpartum depression disorder. For the last 3 quarters she was working on this topic from different perspectives to determine the influence of bias and social norms on concealing the fact that women who became mothers might struggle with PPD. For her capstone she chose to help people with problems that she once encountered herself. Olga realized that it was not possible to help people with a particular problem if she had not encountered it personally. Therefore, she decided to become a warm line volunteer at Perinatal Support Washington. Since January 2021, Olga has been answering calls and emails from expected and new mothers to help with their questions.
It is believed that the main reason for concealing the fact of having PPD is a social stigmatization. Society has many various stereotypes which force new mothers to hide their depression. From this point, the problem needs to be more recognized and carefully studied.
"Aim for the moon you'll hit the stars"
I was born in blooming spring in the beautiful city of Leningrad (back then it was still the Soviet Union), but I grew up in Ukraine in a city on the Bug river, called Vinnytsia. Since childhood, I have always enjoyed helping people, especially the elderly. I always tried to help stray animals. I dreamed of becoming a doctor and treating people. I still believe in a fairy tale like a child, so I easily find a common language with children, but the main thing is that I am a very sincere person in all spheres of life. In any project, I am guided by an analytical approach and I always think over solutions based on specific situations.
My scientific interests are women's mental health, Post-Partum depression disorder in particular, and antibiotic resistance.
Perinatal Support Washington (PS-WA) is a statewide not-profit organization dedicated to shedding light on perinatal mental health to support all families and communities. PS-WA believes that all parents should receive appropriate, timely, and culturally relevant help from conception to a child's first birthday, and especially after. A toll-free helpline, the hotline, has been operating since 1991, providing equal support to parents in need. You can read more about here at PS-WA for parents. We also offer free and low-cost support groups for new parents, psychiatric therapy, training and counseling for health professionals, education and advocacy. You can read more about it here PS-WA for providers. We do all of this with the help of our dedicated staff, board members and dozens of volunteers. These support resources can be found throughout our beautiful state of Washington.
PS-WA is honored to be a recipient of a grant from the Seattle COVID-19 Response Fund. The Foundation directs resources to community organizations that work on the front lines to support the most vulnerable communities in our region. The organization is thrilled to receive the Best Starts for Kids' Help Me Grow King County Grant, which has been funding our new outreach program starting August 2020. Our program will provide families in King County with timely and culturally appropriate treatment for perinatal mood or anxiety.
We have an information program. Our newsletters offer parents and professionals in-depth coverage of issues affecting childbearing families. We send suppliers 4-6 newsletters per year, as well as alerts about upcoming trainings. The organization encourages healthcare providers to subscribe to both our parenting newsletter and our professional newsletter, as our parenting newsletter offers valuable information for the clients.
You can read more here at PS-WA
In one of the courses, I did a little research about mental health of new mothers, which stimulated me to study this problem further. The main purpose of my project is awareness of postpartum depression disorder. The main question of this project is “Do women conceal the fact that they struggle with PPD?” For my project I choose a cross-sectional study. For this study I created a questionnaire in electronic form, an awareness flyer, and a list of factors that may affect the new mother. I made my hypothesis based on recent meta-analysis showed that around 20 % of mothers experience clinical depression after childbirth. Do 20% of mothers have problems with postpartum depression disorder? My sample size was 56 women. If my hypothesis is correct, there are 11 women that have suffered/are suffering from PPD. The results of the study show that only 10,7% of women were officially diagnosed with PPD, yet 41,8% of women said that they concealed the fact that they had depression after the childbirth. From this point, I can assume that the problem of PPD is much serious and the number of affected is much higher than official sources state. I can say that this problem needs to be more recognized and carefully studied. As a future public health provider, I need to inform people more about PPD.
· Among new mothers the recorded rate of clinical postpartum depression is between 10% to 20%.
· According to a recent study, 1 in 7 women might experience PPD in the year after giving birth. This equates to almost 600,000 postpartum depression diagnoses with about 4 million live births taking place in the United States each year.
· A woman who has already experienced postpartum depression previously is 10% to 50% more likely to experience it once again.
· Many researchers believe that 50% of women who develop postpartum depression began experiencing symptoms during pregnancy. This demonstrates the necessity for early symptom-recognition, awareness and access to treatment.
· People in poverty are more likely to develop PPD on 25%, according to data. A study discovered that women with a low socioeconomic status were 11 times more likely to develop PPD symptoms than women with a higher socioeconomic status.
Throughout the project, I made an information flyer, fact sheet, and a picture with risk factors about the Post-Partum depression problem. I had a collaboration with a student who helped me with another part of the project which is 3 hospital posters, fact sheet, and brochure. You can read more about Sage Abplanalp Designer
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- Initiative. I would say that this is the strong point of my character.
- Technical skills, such as working with various computer and telephone programs and databases. I want to improve my technical skills in design and programming for future projects.
- Analytical skills are closely related to the ability to manage day-to-day project-related responsibilities and problem-solving skills, in addition, I analyze every single situation and action in accordance with the norms of the organization.
- I am actively working on keeping track of current events in the mental health field, so I can adapt the recommendations accordingly. I also always ask for feedback and requirements of the manager and clients.
- Strong work ethic and interpersonal skills helped me to get the most out of the situations and achieve the best results to help clients and the organization. The principles of our organization taught me not to judge people, even if I think differently from the client.
- Ability to work in a team. I constantly collaborate with other employees such as social workers, healthcare workers and the manager. Teamwork helps you to achieve your goals in the best possible way. I always ask the managers of our organization for advice in order to better answer the request of each client.
It is important to educate yourself, maybe once you will help someone to recognize this problem.
