Seeking Help for Postpartum Mental Health: It's Time to Break the Silence

Photo by Anete Lusina

As a new parent, I had an insatiable number of questions about my child and my
parenting - am I doing this, right? Is my baby OK? Is there a better way to do this?
No matter how many questions were answered, I always had more.

In between our early pediatrician visits I filled up the Notes App on my phone with
new questions for our next visit. Most of the time, I had already spent hours
googling, asking friends, calling the on-call nursing service to ask the same questions
to try and somehow get answers for my never-ending list.

Many women in my clinical practice suffer from postpartum anxiety or depression.
This means that in the year postpartum women (and/or sometimes their partners)
might be worrying excessively, suffering from insomnia, experiencing low appetite,
navigating fears about many aspects of life, experiencing physical symptoms or
panic attacks, having persistently low mood, feeling overwhelmed, crying
frequently, feeling irritable or apathetic, experiencing mood swings along with a
range of other symptoms.

When someone's default is compromised because of her emotional state, it can be
particularly hard in this digital age that we live in to trust oneself and her decisions
when everything out there seems to contradict. If you google "when to sleep train"
you might find 20 articles saying different things about when, if and how.

The rates of postpartum and pregnancy-related mood disorders are higher than
many people realize ...

• Roughly 80% of new mothers' experience "normal" baby blues in the first few weeks after a baby arrives.
• 1 in 7 experiences serious levels of anxiety or depression during pregnancy or postpartum in the first 3 months following the birth of a child. If you follow these women for a year postpartum the rate increases to 1 in S!
• 1 to 2 out of 1000 women suffer from postpartum psychosis
• 1 in 10 fathers experience postpartum depression

(the above three statistics are cited from: Wisner KL et al JAMA Psychiatry, 2013; Paulson et al.JAMA. 2010)

Suicide is one of the three leading cause of maternal death around the world.
Bleeding and hypertension were number 1 and 2. The peak risk for suicide in this
study was 7 to 9 months postpartum.
(Dell & O'Brien. 2003)

Who is at risk for postpartum mental health mood disorder?

• Previous postpartum mental health disorder history (family history, personal history, symptoms during pregnancy)
• History of Mood Disorders (either personal or family history)
• Significant mood reaction to hormonal changes (i.e. historically had trouble related to mood changes during menstrual cycle, or mood changes during puberty)
• Endocrine dysfunction
• Limited social support
• High stress parenting (parents of multiples, single parents)

Why talk about these statistics?

1. They are treatable and so many women, (and partners) do not seek help because of shame and stigma. There is a taboo around many aspects of mental health, but it's amplified when it comes to becoming a parent. Women and partners can suffer day after day; often secretly feeling ashamed and feeling they made a mistake.
2. We want you to know there are treatments out there that are effective and help so many people every day.

Our hope is that if we can help people understand how common these symptoms are, particularly in the first year of life, identify the symptoms, and take a more proactive approach it will facilitate parents getting the help they need more often.

Med-Psych’s Parent Consultation approach is to both address the concern you have for your child from a medical perspective as well as help you identify whether there are parenting/psychological issues at play that impact your current struggle.

Whether a parent is experiencing a postpartum mental health disorder or simply something that is coming up for him/her surrounding a particular parenting struggle, we appreciate how important it is to help our clients understand their own reaction to the issue so that it can be most effectively addressed.

We know just how hard parenting is, and are here to help you through.

By Ariella Soffer, Ph.D.