The Story of Sound Formulas
Stephanie Raffelock
President, Sound Formulas
When I was born, the phrase “postpartum depression” had not been coined. The family history was that my mother spent several months on and off in a “rest home,” after I was born. I now know that was the psychiatric ward of a hospital. I was the third of three children and my mother was in her 30’s when I was born. Her rebound after my birth was not as quick as with her other two children and the experience was exhausting to her both physically and emotionally.
In 1952 a new mother with a list of health complaints that included, mood swings, exhaustion, insomnia, severe allergies and a general sense of ill being was thought to have a mental imbalance. The fact that my mother had donated nutrients from her body to make up the body of her baby; that she likely had a nutritional depletion from the process of pregnancy, labor and child birth, was not even on the radar. The cure for women like my mother was to perform a hysterectomy. The word ectomy means “to remove.” And hysteria: well, we all know about how women can get hysterical and if we remove all of their distinguishing female characteristics, like their reproductive system for example, maybe they will settle down. Well my mother did settle down. The hormone crash from the hysterectomy subdued her considerably.
Dr. Dean Raffelock
Vice President, Co-Founder
Fast forward to our new millinium: We haven’t really come all that far. Now instead of surgical hysterectomies women are given “chemical” hysterectomies in the form of psychiatric drugs that subdue them. One out of 4 new mothers who complain of mood swings, depression, baby blues, insomnia are prescribed Prozac or Zoloft which fall into a category of SSRI’s – selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors. Once again it is not usually on radar that women can get nutritionally depleted after child birth and would benefit from replenishing their nutritional reserves. Now that is not to say that drugs of the SSRI category don’t have a place. And if it helps to balance one out during a difficult postpartum period, there should be no shame in going that direction. That being said however, we need to note that there are no nutrients in SSRI’s. Women still need nutritional replenishment.
Sound Formulas is out to help change the paradigm of how women are treated in the postpartum period. Just as we now accept that all pregnant women should have folic acid to prevent certain birth defects, I welcome the day when all new mothers are advised to take post-natal nutrients to help stave off some of the effects of childbirth.
So, our little company, Sound Formulas was really birthed by my own mother and her postpartum suffering. Through the passionate desire to be of service to mothers in the arena of health-care, I have healed the relationship with my mother and grown in compassion. A wise woman once told me that none of us is qualified enough to judge what is really Grace. That is a very eloquent way of saying when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Out of a deep need to help and heal my own mother and our relationship I was brought to the path of creating a company that could potentially help thousands of women.
~Stephanie Raffelock~
President, Sound Formulas
