How To Prevent Postpartum Anxiety
A little backstory before we get into it.
When you're pregnant, your placenta regulates your hormones. When you're not pregnant, your hypothalamus is responsible for that job. However, once your placenta detaches from your uterine wall, literally nothing is regulating your hormones — for a good few weeks!
No wonder there’s so much random and unexplained crying, right? It's as if you've quit cold turkey.
Your hypothalamus, the little part of your brain that produces hormones that control things like body temperature, heart rate, hunger, and mood, doesn’t get the memo to get back to work until, you guessed it, a few weeks postpartum – right about when those baby blues disappear.
Around 80% of moms get the pleasure of experiencing the ‘baby blues,” which generally appear a few days postpartum and stick around for a couple of weeks or so. The baby blues can look like random crying, irritability, mood swings — you know, fun stuff.
But PMADs (Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders) are much more intense, often show up later in the game, and stick around longer than the baby blues.
At least one in five moms experiences a PMAD (Perinatal Mood or Anxiety Disorder). Postpartum anxiety, rage, depression, OCD, and PTSD are some examples. So many moms are fighting this battle alone behind closed doors because society hasn't made it a big enough issue to address, so it’s likely a much higher number, due to things like stigma and lack of support.
PMADs can sometimes go away on their own, but with the right treatment—whether that includes medication or not—you can take control and feel better.
I go a step further. I believe that we can take proactive steps to prepare and that we can prevent PMADs, especially postpartum anxiety, which I believe is a social construct. Postpartum anxiety happens because we’re expected to learn how to be moms behind closed doors, without the village of support we need.
So, what steps should we take?
Encapsulate your placenta. Yeah yeah, the science isn't fully there yet, but I can tell you from my experience and the experiences of the moms I’ve worked with, that it can be incredibly helpful and empowering. Placenta pills aren’t just for "crunchy" moms—they’re for everyone. Because until society provides better support for us, we have to do what we can. And remember what I said earlier about quitting cold turkey? Well, when you take your placenta pills, you're bridging the gap between your placenta detaching from your uterus and when your hypothalamus gets back to work.
Educate yourself about the realities of postpartum life. Learn what moms struggle with and figure out how you can set yourself up for success in those areas. Look at your personality, your risk factors, and your specific needs, and then prepare yourself accordingly.
You need ongoing support from at least one person who gets it. Someone you can ask questions when you’re not sure if your baby’s poop looks normal, or someone who can give you advice that aligns with your values. Someone who will not tell you to let your baby cry it out when you’re crying to them because your baby won’t let you put them down. Ideally, you’ll have more than one person, but you need at least one.
We live in a patriarchal, capitalist society that stole our villages and left us to figure out the mom thing all by ourselves, behind closed doors. That’s not okay.
But I want you to know that you have more control over this than you've been led to believe. Your postpartum experience should be filled with joy, and when you look back on it, it should be with happy tears—not tears of sadness and regret, like so many of us have.
With preparation, support, a solid plan, and placenta pills, of course, we can flip the narrative. If you're ready to set yourself up for success, head to my website, take the Postpartum Anxiety Risk Assessment and arm yourself with knowledge.
