Postpartum and New Moms

You had your baby - congratulations!

The moment you’ve been preparing for has come and gone - now you have your baby that you have been waiting for with eager anticipation! Now you enter the Fourth Trimester, the three months after birth where you work on recovering physically and emotionally, figure out feeding baby, build your bond with your baby, and learn (or relearn) how to be a parent to a newborn. Not to mention getting to know two people - your new baby, and your forever changed self!

The postpartum time ranges from beautiful to traumatic…

Each woman, pregnancy, delivery, and baby is totally unique and therefore, so is her postpartum experience. For some women the postpartum period is an unforgettable time full of tender moments and overflowing love and oxytocin. However, for other women, it’s unforgettable because it feels like an incredibly hard nightmare. Most women have an experience that is somewhere in between, with high highs and low lows. As a therapist who specializes in postpartum issues and is also a new mom, I can help this period shift from distress and overwhelm to connection and confidence.

Some of the reasons why it can vary so much include hormones, difficulty of delivery, injuries or complications during pregnancy/delivery, level of support (especially from a partner), presence of birth trauma, preexisting mental health struggles, challenges with feeding, boundary challenges with family members, temperament of the baby (some babies are chill, some are very sensitive and struggle to soothe), perceived competence as a new parent, and the presence and temperament of any existing children in the home.

The Hormonal Roller Coaster Nobody Warns You About

The first two weeks after giving birth are an intense, often difficult time due to RAPIDLY changing levels of hormones in your body. Even for the parents who are lucky enough to not develop postpartum mood disorders, these first two weeks can be a doozy. You may have intense, irrational anxiety and fear, you might hallucinate, you might be crying for no reason at all, you might not be able to eat or sleep despite being exhausted and starving, and you might feel weirdly disconnected from your baby. This is all the more true for moms who experienced birth trauma.

Postpartum After C-Section

C-section mamas, especially if they had an emergency c-section or an unplanned c-section after a long, challenging labor, have a different kind of healing and pain to cope with. While many women report their c-sections were positive experiences, a great many feel traumatized by theirs, even if they don’t label it as such. It is quite something to have to come to terms with your baby not being able to be born vaginally (for non-elective) and to be operated on while awake. And while we are so grateful modern medicine has a way to deliver babies who otherwise wouldn’t be able to be born (and in some cases, mom wouldn’t have survived), it is heavy to consider the way it would have ended in a different time period. Not to mention the physical recovery after a major surgery and emotional/physical effects of surgery and days of IV fluid (extra engorgement and difficulty feeding, fogginess due to anesthesia, surgical pain, scar management, difficulty with movement, feeling like you didn’t “birth” your baby, etc.). Oh and you still have to bleed for weeks!

Postpartum after Vaginal Delivery

They don’t call it labor for nothing! Some women report enjoying their births, in which they felt calm and empowered. And many don’t and are just glad to have survived it. In either case, there is pain, bleeding, and exhaustion to contend with afterwards and that does not include perineal tears, delivery complications, unwanted deviations from the birth plan, or other emotional or physical injuries that may occur, as well as challenges adjusting to your new body, navigating feeding, and the presence of any birth trauma.

Birth Trauma

The presence of birth trauma can cause intense physical and/or emotional distress and it negatively impact your quality of life, the bond with your baby, and your experience of being a new parent. Birth trauma includes any intense and overwhelming negative experience during the birth process in which your physical or emotional safety felt threatened. Examples include (but are not limited to) emergency c-sections, life-threatening complications for mom or baby (even if both ultimately end up ok), baby going to NICU, mistreatment by healthcare staff, significant tears or blood loss, birth injuries and bodily damage, and experiences of medical racism, anti-fat bias, or ableism.

Breastfeeding is Hard

Whether you exclusively breastfeed, exclusively pump, or combo feed, feeding your baby is often one of the TOP sources of distress for new moms - another thing moms-to-be are not adequately prepared for! It is rare I meet a woman who doesn’t have at least some significant struggle with breastfeeding. It is SO much harder than people think it will be, even when they take a class. There is nothing more tortuous than a screaming, starving baby and feeling like you can’t feed them - even if you are ok with the idea of formula- it’s primal. Add to that all the pressure to breastfeed, painful engorgement, clogged ducts and mastitis, painful latches, tongue ties, flat nipples, unhelpful interactions with medical staff or opinionated relatives and it can truly be a minefield. You nor your baby have EVER done this before - you both deserve a lot of support, pateince, and grace. Working with a good (get references) International Board Certified Lactation Consultant and therapist specializing in postpartum issues and new moms can really help.

Formula Shaming is Real

We are FIRMLY in the “Fed Is Best” camp at Well Woman Psychology. How a woman decides to feed her child is a complex and highly personal choice based on many factors including medications mom is taking, milk supply, comfort or discomfort nursing, difficulty or ease of breastfeeding, any prior experience breastfeeding, feelings about pumping, level of support, relationship with one’s body, what someone finds most convenient and what time constraints are present, financial considerations, health and dietary considerations of mom and baby, mental health struggles, and other, practical considerations (i.e. dealing with bottles, time to pump, how to keep milk cold, etc.).

The right way to feed your baby is the way that makes mom feel her best physically and mentally- for both mom’s sake and baby’s sake. In some cases it may be the option that your baby’s health requires because of a health issue such as an allergy or oral problem.

Postpartum Body Image

You have given birth, whether vaginally or surgically, and you have a beautiful body to show for it. However, for many women it feels foreign and not even close to beautiful. There may be scars or stretch marks, who knows what is going on with your hair, your body may be a size or shape you have been taught is less than, or you may simply be bewildered at the new way it looks and feels and need time to adjust. This can be a difficult time of intense shame, disgust, confusion, and self-criticism and it is NOT helped by the insane pressure to “bounce back” and the intense mommy fitness diet culture scene.

Family Drama

Have a mother-in-law being passive aggressive that you didn’t allow her in the birth suite or that she doesn’t think she has enough access to her grandbaby? Family members shaming you for asking them to not kiss the baby? Relatives coming over and asking what’s for dinner? Parents offering unsolicited parenting advice recommending the very things that you felt harmed by? You will never feel less patient for bad behavior from family members than you will in the postpartum period. It’s a vulnerable time and a baby seems to really bring out the family dysfunction. Now is the time to find a middle path so that you can set and enforce boundaries that are kind to yourself and the family member, allowing you to build or maintain positive, healthy relationships (or at least, less harmful!). Plus, this is SUPER important for your child to learn about healthy boundaries in families and what kind of behavior they should or shouldn’t tolerate.

Postpartum Loss of Identity

Having a baby is one of the biggest and most emotionally intense changes a person can experience. You are a different person than before this birth and now you have TWO (or more) lives to take care of, not one. Many new moms struggle to find time for the most basic self-care, let alone time to be alone or engage in hobbies or interests. Free time feels like a thing of the past. Your identity may be taken over by “mom” and it can be difficult to connect with “career woman,” “partner,” “friend,” or other parts of yourself. It’s also common to feel “touched out” to be overwhelmed by all there is to learn and do (how is there so much laundry?), and to experience rage or other emotions that make it difficult to recognize yourself. Many moms grieve their pre-baby life, even if they wanted their baby badly and love them intensely. All of this is normal and takes time to adjust to.

Postpartum Relationship Challenges

Becoming parents is likely the biggest test your relationship will ever face, and, depending on how you and your partner navigate it, parenthood can bring you even closer together and deepen your love for your partner. But that takes a while generally and it’s still really hard! Time alone together evaporates suddenly and is replaced by relentless caregiving for your sweet new babe. Sleep deprivation makes people irritable and less able to think straight or communicate effectively, so it’s harder to work through things. Each partner may feel alone and not understood and question if the other partner is doing their best. It’s HARD. Not to mention the added impact of birth trauma, family drama, and any health challenges with baby, which add an enormous amount of stress. But with the right support and tools, you and your partner can learn to navigate these tough moments to work together as a loving, effective team, feeling supported by each other and less alone.

Sex After Baby

It’s also very normal to have difficulty with sex after baby and for a whole host of reasons- too much pain, body image problems, resentment about imbalances in parenting work and emotional/mental labor, a lack of time alone with your partner, and just being too dang tired. Sometimes the non-birthing partner really underestimates the impact of birth and new parenthood on sexuality. A lack of sex is less of a problem if you both are on the same page about it, though you may still miss the intimacy and want to get back to it. But if you aren’t on the same page about sex, it can become a real source of rejection and resentment in both directions.

New Parent Overwhelm

If you are a first time mom, you may never feel like you know what you are doing. It’s all new and overwhelming and stressful, no matter how many books you read or classes you took. Feeling like you will break your baby, being unsure what is a feeding cue from a sleeping cue, deciding if gas really IS the problem, and feeling clumsy and new at everything are all common experiences. Not to mention any of the challenges described above.

And even you aren’t a first time mom, this is the first and only time you will parent THIS child. As any parent of multiple children will tell you, they are each totally different! And even though you love your bundle of joy, it’s a LOT of work, especially if you don’t have the village we all hope for.

Learning to Be a Mom Without A Mom

As if being a mom wasn’t already the hardest job in the world under the best circumstances, it is made much harder and more painful when you yourself are trying to figure out motherhood without a positive mom figure in your life. Sometimes this is because your mom has died, making the pain of missing her all the more acute during this tender time. Other times it is because your mom is/has been an abusive or toxic person and, as a result, you don’t have the mom you need or deserve to shepherd you through postpartum as you deserve and wanted. This is challenging whether your mom is in your life and you are trying to minimize the damage, or if you are estranged or distant from your mom. Either way, there is heavy grief around becoming a mom without the mom you crave by your side for support and guidance.

The Fourth Trimester is incredibly challenging and also a beautiful time of building a bond with your baby and finding your way as a mom. You deserve compassionate support from a therapist who is familiar with the challenges of postpartum issues, professionally and personally, giving you space to air your feelings without judgment.

Postpartum PTSD

 All of these postpartum mental health challenges are treatable and they are not your fault. A postpartum therapist specializing in maternal mental health can help. You deserve support to overcome them, for yourself and for baby.

(Postpartum OCD and postpartum psychosis are their own conditions, however I do not treat these.)