Healing Future Generations: One woman’s journey in helping expectant families and parents of young children

Imagine who you are now. Now imagine your identity completely changing. That is the stark reality for many women who choose to become mothers. For six-time Oscar nominee, Amy Adams in the 2024 book-to-film adaptation, “Nightbitch,” her newfound identity as a former artist turned stay-at-home mom has her barking at the moon—literally.

“Nightbitch” was the December 2024 selection for the MSP Film Society’s Cinema Club. MSP Film Society members gather on the second Saturday of each month at the Main Cinema in the historic Minneapolis neighborhood of Saint Anthony. Following the film, there’s a discussion on the film’s theme led by a subject expert, a film critic, or a member of the Cinema Club’s programming team.

Hennepin Healthcare Research Institute (HHRI) Senior Researcher Gretchen Buchanan, PhD, LMFT, LADC, at the Redleaf Center for Family Healing and Assistant Professor at the University of Minnesota, was invited by Cinema Club Moderator Megan Feeney as a subject-expert to speak at the “Nightbitch” film screening to open a dialogue about the difficulties of motherhood not often discussed, including postpartum mental health, the isolation of motherhood in America, female empowerment, loss of identity, and shifting parenting styles.

The Redleaf Center for Family Healing is nestled within Hennepin Healthcare, focusing on multi-generational mental health and parenting support for individuals during pregnancy and parenting of children aged 0-5 years. Their services include: Mother-Baby Connections Group, Mother-Baby Day Hospital, Perinatal Outpatient Program (POP), the Redleaf Outpatient Clinic, and infant and early childhood mental health services.

It’s more than the blues

Most people have heard of postpartum depression or the colloquial phrase, “the baby blues,” but you’d be surprised to know that it’s much more than that. “One in five people who give birth end up with some type of perinatal mood and anxiety disorder (PMAD). And only about 25% of people who develop one get any type of help, any type of treatment. So, there’s a lot of people out there who suffer and who struggle without any help or support,” said Dr. Buchanan.

Diagnoses can include things like anxiety, bipolar disorder, depression, obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), psychosis, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). These diagnoses typically show up during the perinatal phase of pregnancy, which is the time frame from conception to one-year post-birth; they can be re-activations of pre-existing conditions or completely new.

According to the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), PMAD can develop during pregnancy and up to 12 months after giving birth, with a high number of women who are undiagnosed during pregnancy. “Perinatal mood and anxiety disorder (PMAD) is a commonly used term to refer to a mental health disorder experienced during pregnancy, after having a new baby, adopting, or experiencing pregnancy/infant loss. Postpartum depression is often used as an umbrella term or interchangeably with PMAD.”

You’ve got a friend in me

The Redleaf Center for Family Healing (Redleaf for short), co-founded in 2013 by Redleaf Medical Director and Clinical Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Minnesota, Helen Kim, MD, wants to be the olive branch for those suffering from PMAD, building caregiver communities, learning parenting skills, and making the parenting transition a less lonely road.

“Because you know that reflective piece that other people give you is critical. I think part of the implication of us being so insular and not living in communities and not living in tribes as much is that we don’t learn by seeing as much [in the] diverse range of how people interact with the world and how people interact with each other. [There’s] so much more diversity in understanding how people experience situations and how people respond to situations and how people cope and regulate and those types of things. And I think when you don’t have that, then we’re so much more limited in our understanding of how to manage life,” said Dr. Buchanan.

Getting to the root cause

Dr. Buchanan wants to be an ally in stopping intergenerational trauma from the start. While she started her career as a licensed marriage and family therapist and licensed alcohol and drug counselor helping adolescents and their families, she realized over time that she needed to get to the root cause of trauma.

“I felt like I wanted to change things more systematically and that I wanted to change things on a generational level. And so much of the time, I encountered [the parents of troubled adolescents] over and over again that either had no idea that they had a mental health condition that wasn’t being treated, or they didn’t have access to treatment. And so, the lack of awareness and then, even if there was some sense of awareness, the lack of access to appropriate care.”

This inspired Dr. Buchanan to switch to working as an implementation researcher 100% of the time, specializing in mental health within families; her goal with her work is to completely transform the trajectory of a child’s life from the very start. She’s hopeful about Redleaf’s potential to heal future generations.

“If we can work with expecting new parents and take advantage of the motivation to change their family’s trajectory, we can interrupt intergenerational trauma transmission and help more and more families have high-quality relational health, which will result in those babies and young kids growing into healthier individual adults who can then perpetuate a different model of parenting and interpersonal relationships. We also want to change the system to break down the stigma of mental illness and substance use and recognize the strength and courage it takes people to recover from adverse childhood experiences and subsequent traumas.”

Related Links

• Mothers Leading Science program
• The MSP Film Society’s “Cinema Club”
• Read about the book’s author, Rachel Yoder
• Watch the movie on Hulu

Support Resources for Expectant Families or with Young Children

• Redleaf Center for Family Healing Resources
• National Maternal Mental Health Hotline: 1-888-852-6262 (TCL-MAMA) hotline
• Help Me Connect
• Postpartum Support International – PSI