Life changes dramatically with the advent of a new child. While it is understandable that stress levels may be high and negative emotions common during the adjustment to being on call 24 hours a day, new mothers typically hide these feelings from friends and family members. They mistakenly believe that grateful, loving thoughts and emotions are the only appropriate ones to admit to when dealing with the challenges of new motherhood.
The internal belief that other people will perceive them as “bad” keeps too many mothers silent. They may choose to suffer quietly rather than risking strong judgements from friends and family or even having their babies taken away. Having a guideline to show what is normal and what isn’t can make all the difference in getting help to new mothers in difficult situations.
The “baby blues” are experienced by most women during the first two weeks after giving birth. Hormone levels go through huge fluctuations before settling down and normalizing. During this time, new moms often have a hard time concentrating, and find themselves to be more forgetful than usual, anxious, tired, tearful, irritable and moody. The good news is that the “baby blues” tend to resolve without any external intervention.
But what if the symptoms are more severe and last longer? What if depression, hopelessness, feelings of vulnerability and inadequacy as a wife and mother, lack of interest in the baby or oneself, low level of daily functioning or severe mood swings are part of the mix? Surely this is crazy, right? Wrong. These symptoms are common in the 10% - 17% of women who experience postpartum depression.
What if the experiences are even more difficult? Is a mother crazy if she has panic attacks, visions of bad things happening to her baby without being able to stop them, obsessions about germs or cleanliness, or other unreasonable fears? Probably not. Women with these symptoms are likely to have postpartum obsessive-compulsive disorder.
What about the women who get sensationalized on the news, the ones who think their babies are from the devil? We’ve all heard stories about new mothers who think they were told to hurt themselves or their babies. Can these women be sane?
These moms suffer from postpartum psychosis, at the severe end of the postpartum mood disorder continuum. And yes, if we have to draw the line somewhere, this is it. Fortunately, postpartum psychosis is rare. Just one or two of every thousand women deal with this disorder. They experience visual or auditory hallucinations and delusions that are extremely dangerous. For safety’s sake, these are the women in need of immediate medical attention and hospitalization. Their babies must be cared for by someone else, at least for a while.
I like to put it this way: Anytime a new mom is worried about the well being of herself and her child, she is probably still sane. After all, it takes a significant level of self awareness to be concerned about one’s thoughts and feelings. Rather than judging or ostracizing new mothers with postpartum mood disorders, let’s make it easier to get help. Every symptom I’ve described is treatable, and resources are available now.
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