Postnatal Depression and Anxiety (Transcription)
Hi, everyone happy Wednesday! So today I’m going to talk about postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, and the baby blues. I do want to start by saying that I do not specifically specialize in these issues when it comes to counseling. There are therapists out there, however that do specialize in these presenting issues. So if you are struggling or if you know somebody who’s struggling, there are specific resources and therapists that work with this issue. Though I am not one of them, I do have some background knowledge of these issues. So I wanted to just share with you because it is a really prevalent issue just to have awareness on it and to hopefully help people understand if they might have one of these.
The Baby Blues
The first one that I’m gonna talk about is the “Baby Blues”. So this will typically happen about two to three days after childbirth or delivery. And it will last for at most two weeks. The Baby Blues is just feeling sad, tired, and a little bit anxious. There are a lot of transitions that are happening and you’re probably sleep deprived – so they call this the baby blues.
Postpartum Depression
Now, if you go into postpartum depression, the symptoms become a lot more intense and will last a lot longer than those baby blues. So once it hits those two weeks typically and they get more severe than you might be going into postpartum depression or postnatal depression (“PPD”). Some of the symptoms of PPD are going to be (i) crying, (ii) feeling depressed, (iii) difficulty bonding with your baby, (iv) having insomnia or oversleeping, (v) reduced interest in activities – that you typically have interest in -, (vi) irritability, (vii) fear of not being a good mother, (viii) having severe anxiety, and/or (IX) having thoughts of suicide or self-harm or harm to your baby.
So those are some of the symptoms to look out for, for PPD and some of the causes. They don’t really know exactly what causes it, but they do say that there is such a large drop in hormones that that can possibly be a trigger for it. And then of course you’re sleep deprived because you have a newborn and you’re not used to that if it’s your first kid or if it’s you, then your second or third or fourth kid – you know, you’re just not used to that lack of sleep as much. So that can also contribute to PPD.
Postpartum Anxiety
Then you have postpartum anxiety or postnatal anxiety (“PPA”). So postpartum anxiety, you have symptoms of excessive worry. You’re not sleeping – not just because of your baby, but because you have racing thoughts, lack of concentration, rapid heartbeat, things like that. You can think of anxiety symptoms and it’s just in the postpartum realm. And again, same sort of causes of the drop in hormones. Also if you’re a new parent or if this is another child of yours that you’re having, when you have an infant there’s a lot of anxiety surrounding that. So that can be contributing to it as well.
It is OK to Reach Out for Help
If you’re experiencing these symptoms or know somebody experiencing these symptoms and think that you might have PPD or PPA, please reach out to your doctor. A lot of doctors nowadays have to do some sort of screening for it. I think it’s actually a law now at least in some States, so reach out to your doctor if you’re experiencing these things and then they can help you get connected to a Therapist. A lot of times they’ll have referrals for these type of issues because they ha they’re so common and they have them of people that come in.
So make sure you reach out to your doctor and then find a therapist that can help specifically with these issues and just know that you shouldn’t be ashamed. PPD and PPA are actually really common. And you know, it’s important to know when you’re not feeling yourself or you’re not feeling good, you know, yourself best. So make sure that you get help for these. If you notice somebody else like your partner or your spouse, a friend, whoever is experiencing this, let them know that (i) it’s okay to reach out for help, (ii) you’re worried about them and (iii) help them get connected. If you think that you’re experiencing PPD or PPA or you know somebody experiencing it then you want to make sure you reach out to the appropriate people. Hopefully this helps and I will talk to you all next week!
