COMMUNITY

Psychologist’s nonprofit addresses teen suicide

BY KEN SAIN

Arizonan Staff Writer

Aperiod represents the end of a sentence, a paragraph or perhaps a book. A semicolon, however, means there is more to come. It has become a symbol for suicide awareness.

Younger Americans are getting semicolon tattoos if they know someone who has considered suicide and for whatever reason is moving forward. They have not reached their end yet.

Dr. Paula McCall started the Semicolon Society in June to address the growing teen mental health crisis the nation is facing. It became an official nonprofit in early August. The Arizona Department of Health reported that 219 people24 and younger took their lives in 2019, the most recent data posted.

Teen suicide has become a top issue in the city and region after three Chandler Unified School District students ended their lives in a 12-day span last May. Another CUSD student took her life about two weeks into this school year.

The Department of Health said there were 1,540 suicides in Arizona in 2019, and nearly 46,000 Americans killed themselves in 2020 according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“I started working in the school districts on things like suicide, risk assessments and prevention,” said McCall, a licensed psychologist. “And then I shifted that as I moved into my private practice, I started shifting into wanting to reach out to the community. I live in Chandler, my practice is in Chandler, my kids go to school in Chandler, so Chandler is my home.”

McCall said the rise in teen suicides began in 2007, but the reasons behind it are not easy to pinpoint. Certainly the rise of social media plays a role, but she points out most young people have lived with social media all their lives, and they don’t know a world without it.

She noted data indicating a considerable drop in suicides was recorded in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“That’s an interesting thing to consider because there’s lots of pieces there,” she said. “There wasn’t the stress of inperson school, but there was the stress of online school and trying to figure that out. If you think about it from a family system perspective, you had families that were in general, not across the board, but there were many families that ended up much closer, proximity wise with each other, being around each other, just connecting in a physical sense more often.

“So a lot of experience of parents and kids being around each other more and not in a rushed way. It was ‘we’re home, we can’t really can’t go anywhere. We’re here.’”

A lot of what the Semicolon Society is doing is parental education, helping moms and dads know the signs of suicidal thoughts. McCall said in her ideal world, children are growing up learning about suicides, LGBTQ+, sex and other issues that are uncomfortable for some parents.

“The thing is, as parents, we don’t have to go into these conversations and give a narrative and give a research paper and give you all the answers to all the world,” McCall said.

“We can say, ‘Hey, I realized that someone died by suicide in your school this week, and I wanted to talk to you about that. And, I want to know if you’ve ever had thoughts about suicide, and I want to know your feelings about what’s going on.’ We need to listen to our kids.”

McCall wants CUSD and other school districts to work more with local nonprofits, saying they cannot address the problem alone. She said some of the nonprofits have expertise that can help, say in addressing suicides by LGBTQ+ students, or African American males, which are both higher than other segments.

The one thing she said parents and school districts need to do is to talk about suicides.

“I think there’s still a fear there… that if we talk about it too much it spreads too much,” she said. “And we have to keep it contained on this campus. But the thing is that our kids talk. When I talked to my own son, he’s 15.

I asked him about … ‘what do you think about this idea that if I talk to you about suicide, you know, that you’re gonna think about attempting suicide?’ He’s like, ‘I already know about suicide, like it’s out there. You’re talking about it, don’t give yourself that much credit.’”

Chandler psychologist Dr. Paula McCall is the founder of The Semicolon Society, a nonprofit to help offer mental health education and suicide prevention, (David Minton/Staff

Photographer)

Chandler mom’s nonprofit helps new mothers

BY SRIANTHI PERERA Arizonan Contributor

Soon after the birth of her first son, Chandler mom Jennie Bever found herself struggling in the day-today.

She suffered from mastitis, a painful infection of the breast tissue, her employer expected her to work while she took six weeks of short-term disability and she became sleep-deprived.

“My body changed, my focus changed, all my relationships changed overnight after having a baby, and there really was no system set up to support me beyond my partner and my mom,” said Bever.

Now the mother of three sons, ages 16, 10 and 7, she runs 4th Trimester Arizona, a nonprofit organization created to bring awareness to this phase of life, to create community for new mothers and to change the culture of new parenthood.

Bever holds a doctorate in biology from the University of California at San Diego and is also a lactation specialist. She owns the Arizona Breastfeeding Center in Tempe, which she established in 2010.

The fourth trimester comprises the first three months after a baby is born.

“During this time, infants require 24/7 care, including feeding every few hours, and near constant holding,” Bever said. “This first three months is also the time that the new parent is healing from pregnancy and birth, learning how to be a 24/7 caregiver, how to feed baby, and dealing with the financial and relationship implications of now being a parent.”

For most parents, the fourth trimester lasts much longer than three months, Bever said, and at 4th Trimester Arizona, the focus is on the parent’s mental, emotional and physical health in the first five years after a baby is born. Bever found first hand that very little is focused on postpartum care for new mothers.

So did Gilbert mom Jillian Seamans, who felt like she was sent off home from the hospital with nothing but some paperwork, Vicodin and a baby.

“As a new mom, I was surprised at how little support and guidance I received from my doctors and at the hospital after having a baby,” she said. “I had an emergency c-section, so not only was I recovering from the most intense and invasive surgery of my life, but I was also trying to figure out breastfeeding and how to take care of a baby.”

Traditionally, OBGYN is focused on physical healing, Bever said.

“However, there are many more problems new mothers face, including postpartum mood and anxiety disorders, that are not adequately addressed in the postpartum period.

“More than 50 percent of maternal deaths happen after a baby is born,” she added.

Created on the theme that “it takes a village to raise a child,” 4th Trimester Arizona offers monthly villages, or meetings, specialized for each area of the Valley and in Tucson. The East Valley Village meets from 10-11:30 a.m. the third Thursday of the month on Zoom and Facebook Live; the topic for September is “Postpartum Hacks: Infant Feeding Challenges.”

The Central Village meets 10-11:30 a.m. in person on the second Wednesday of the month at the i.d.e.a. Museum, 150 W. Pepper Place, Mesa.

The organization also offers annual conferences. A free online summit called the 4th Trimester Ecosystem Summit for those who support parents is planned for Sept. 27-28.

Conferences are attended by 200 to 400 people each year, and the villages serve about 60 new parents each month, while hundreds watch the videos that are posted on social media.

Seamans attended a fourth trimester conference that provided her with a lifeline.

“The conference completely changed the way I feel about motherhood. Of course, it didn’t fix all of my new-mom struggles, but it helped me to realize that I wasn’t the only one who found the fourth-trimester stage extremely difficult,” she said.

“Not only did I learn what the fourth trimester even was, but I also learned that there were resources out there to help during this time,” she added.

She vowed to do better with her next baby, and she did.

“I found myself a little angry and passionate about the way Americans view the fourth trimester period. When I found myself pregnant with my second baby, I referenced the resources and connected with the community that I was introduced to at the 4th Trimester conference,” she said.

Her goal was to utilize any and all resources to help ease the weight of the fourth trimester so she could heal, rest, bond and focus on her baby.

“I connected with the lactation specialists who again noticed that my second baby had a tongue tie as well. I hired a postpartum doula, had postpartum cranial sacral therapy for myself and my baby, a postpartum massage, and nourished myself with the foods and drinks that I learned help a postpartum body,” she said.

Her second son was a preemie. “I also utilized services that I learned about to help me track his milestones. I met with someone on a monthly basis who monitored my son’s growth,” she added.

Bever runs The Arizona Breastfeeding Center, a clinical lactation practice of International Board Certified Lactation Consultants that serve families for infant feeding support as well as train future lactation consultants.

“The families I work with at the Arizona Breastfeeding Center were and continue to be my inspiration and motivation as we work towards changing the culture of parenting so no one has to do it alone, and all families are embraced by their communities in their transition to parenting,” Bever said. 4th Trimester Arizona operates with five staffers and a host of volunteers, especially during events. It’s funded by grants, sponsorships and individual donations. A tech-support person and a full-time coordinator are on its wish-list.

“We have experienced a lot of growth in the past two years, and our biggest challenge is having the funding and resources to meet the needs of parents and those who support them,” Bever said.

Jennie Bever runs 4th Trimester AZ, a nonprofit that helps mothers cope after birthing a

baby. (Courtesy of Jennie Bever)