Postpartum Mood Disorders
Postpartum Mood Disorders can more common than we think. 1 in 4 people are diagnosed with some sort of Mood Disorder, whether its Postpartum Depression, Postpartum Anxiety, or Postpartum Psychosis. Postpartum is hard enough having to heal from birth while taking care of a newborn, but the mental toll it can take on some of us can make recovery that much harder and longer.
It is important for the entire support team and family to know what Postpartum Mood Disorders are, what signs and symptoms to be on the lookout for, and how to seek out help if needed. They are the ones to more likely notice a change before we see it in ourselves. They can help encourage you to seek help by seeing your doctor or finding a therapist for you to talk to. They can also help lighten the load on you during the postpartum period by offering emotional support. Taking tasks off your list, like doing dishes, or changing baby’s diapers. Watching baby while you take a nap or shower, self care during the postpartum period is important!!
Baby Blues
Baby Blues is the term that refers to the mood swings that people feel within the first 2ish weeks of postpartum that is due to the changes in hormones during the postpartum period along with the lack of sleep many of us feel. This is a temporary and mild form of depression. This can include feeling worries, unhappy, exhausted, going from laughing to crying out of no where, and feelings of being overwhelmed. This is all normal! Taking care of a baby 24/7 is a lot of work and so is recovering from pregnancy and childbirth. It affects us all in different ways, some will feel more overwhelmed than others. Around 85% of people will experience the baby blues. This is a very common, but frustrating thing to experience. If these feelings persist past 2 week or they are VERY extreme, then seeking out help is recommended because it may be one of the disorders below!
1. Postpartum Depression
Postpartum Depression is a mood disorder that affects 10-15% of people after having a baby, but it could also occur during pregnancy as well. This would be called Prenatal Depression. Usual symptoms include feeling extreme sadness, anxiety, fatigue, not wanting to do usual daily tasks to include self care. These symptoms are present past 2-4 weeks postpartum. PPD can last for a few months up to a year postpartum, and some even reported it developing later in their postpartum period.
Cause?
There is no known cause for who will develop postpartum depression, and it’s never anything that you have done or didn’t do that brought it on. You are not at fault if you have PPD. Research suggests that it has both a genetic component and an environmental component. It can be a combination of life stressors, the demands of caring for a baby (both physical and emotional), hormone changes that occur, and family and personal history of depression or bipolar disorder. If you have a history of depression or anxiety you have an increase risk of developing PPD.
Symptoms:
A list of symptoms for you and your support symptoms to monitor for:
- Persistent feeling of being sad or anxious, some will say they feel “empty”
- Irritability
- Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, Hopelessness
- Loss of interest in things that once brought joy
- Extreme Fatigue
- Restlessness
- Difficulty concentrating, remembering things, or making decisions
- Changes in sleep patterns, such as insomnia, early waking or sleeping all the time
- Changes in eating habits, over or under eating
- Aches/Pains with no physical causes – Headaches, cramps, or digestive issues
- Trouble bonding with baby
- Doubting your ability to care for yourself or your baby
- Anger and feeling frustrated often
- Thoughts of killing yourself or your baby** (Extreme case see PP Psychosis below)
Treatment
When treated appropriately, most feel their symptoms improve and they feel better overall! The earlier we can get to treatment, usually the quicker we are able to resolve the symptoms.
Treatment can include medication, some sort of therapy, or a combination of the two.
It’s very personalized because what could help one person may not work for another person. I think everyone could benefit from therapy in general, so therapy is always a good place to start in my mind!
There are usually postpartum support groups in your area as well which can make you feel less alone in your PPD journey.
2. Postpartum Anxiety
Postpartum Anxiety is when someone experiences extreme anxiety or worry after having a baby. This affects between 11-21% of people. Someone who had PPD could also have some anxiety symptoms and could also be diagnosed with PPA! PPA also can also affect someone other than the birthing person! So, the partner, family members, or adoptive parents can develop PPA too!
The biggest different with PPA is that the anxiety and thoughts are next level. They’re out of our control and take over our mind. It is expected to be somewhat anxious and worried as a new parent, but the difference between expected worry and Postpartum anxiety is the fact that the worrying and anxiety is all-consuming, like you are feeling on edge constantly. You are worried and anxious all the time. Usually for an irrational reason or associated with an irrational fears. The irrational fears could lead to you worrying about very unlikely situations happening to you or your baby. This constant worrying could affect your daily life because it may cause you to not want to do activities you once enjoyed.
An example of an expected worry of new parents could be that someone could hurt your baby. Without PPA, you would just ensure you leave your baby with someone you trust and know are capable of taking care of your baby to help ease the anxiety and fear. You are able to leave baby with that caregiver and not be anxious while you are gone. With PPA, the thought of leaving your baby along with any one, even someone you trust, gives you extreme anxiety to the point you may never leave them. The anxiety could cause your heart to race, shortness of breath, nauseous, or even cause you to not be able to sleep at night because that’s all you can think about is someone hurting your baby when you’re not there.
PPA can develop during pregnancy, immediately after having baby, or anytime within that first 12 months postpartum. It doesn’t last forever, but typically does need some sort of treatment before it will go away.
Someone with OCD is predisposed to having PPA, and it may lead to more panic attacks.
Symptoms
Symptoms to monitor for include:
-Disrupted sleep, either insomnia or not being able to sleep long stretches
-Heart racing/palpitations
-Nausea or stomach aches like your stomach is in knots
-Shortness of breath
-Loss of appetite
-Restlessness
-Tension in our body, unable to relax or be calm
-Racing thoughts, especially thinking only extreme worse-case scenarios
-Obsessing over irrational fears
-Irritable or feeling on edge all the time
-Avoiding certain situations based on our irrational fears
-Overly Cautious
-Controlling
-Checking on things over and over and over again
There’s no diagnostic tool for PPA, which is why it could be missed a lot of the time by providers. So knowing the symptoms to look out for and not being afraid to bring them up to your providers can help!
Treatment
Treatment is similar to PPD where it is both therapy and medication options. They usually start with some sort of therapy and support group, and then introduce medication. Medication they offer can depend on if you’re breastfeeding and other health histories.
3. Postpartum Psychosis
Postpartum Psychosis is a severe mental illness that occurs after 1-2% of people after childbirth that is a medical emergency. Seeking help immediately by calling 911 or going to a nearby ER is important. PPP is when someone has delusions (thoughts or beliefs that are not true such as their baby is possessed by a demon), hallucinations(seeing, hearing, or smelling things that are not there, like they may hear a constant sound or smell coming from baby that may cause them to harm baby), mania(a high elated mood that seems out of touch with reality) paranoid(like someone is out to get them), and confusion(not sure what is going on around them) during the postpartum period. It is important that they seek out help because they are at risk of harming themselves or their baby. Recovery is possible with professional help. These cases when they aren’t treated are those sad cases you see on the news about someone hurting themselves or a baby soon postpartum.
Other Reasons to seek help
There are other psychiatric disorders that could be newly diagnosed in the postpartum period, so seeking care for any changes in our behaviors and moods is important. Especially if the changes included high risk taking behaviors or increased substance use (alcohol and drugs).
Preventable?
There are not a lot of studies that support ways to prevent postpartum mood disorders from developing. This is an area that is lacking in evidence, but one thing professionals can agree upon is the important of sleep and its effect on Postpartum Mood Disorders.
Sleep
Lack of sleep during the postpartum is common, but it could also play a role in the development of postpartum mood disorders! Having a plan with your partner and support team to ensure optimal sleep is still being achieved can make a big difference in preventing postpartum mood disorders. Creating a plan prenatally with your partner or support team that can optimize sleep and self care could make a big impact on the development of mood disorders in the postpartum.
Nutrient Supplementation
There is one study that states the importance of Omega-3, it found that there was a correlation with low Omega-3 levels and postpartum mood disorder diagnosis, but this is only a few studies that support this claim. There needs to be way more research in this area to support this claim. Other supplementation of calcium and selenium each have some studies that support their use in preventing postpartum mood disorders as well.
You are not alone!
Know that you are not alone if you start having these symptoms. It doesnt make you less of a parent, or a “bad” parent because you develops this disorder. Don’t be afraid to seek out care for yourself because of the social stigma around mental illness. You seeking out care for yourself makes you so STRONG.
