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.
Many new moms fear they will be thought of as unfit mothers if other people knew the truth about their feelings. They may never ask for help because they don't have a baseline sense of what is actually normal and what's not.
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.
Sometimes the symptoms continue after the two week "baby blues" time frame, and are accompanied by additional challenges. Somewhere between 10% to 17% of new mothers may experience postpartum depression. They have to cope with all the previous symptoms plus feelings of vulnerability, depression, low self-esteem, hopelessness, decreased levels of daily functioning and severe mood swings. These women have a difficult journey, but they are not crazy.
What if the level of intensity is ramped up? What if a new mom has unreasonable fears, panic attacks, obsessions about cleanliness and germs, or visions of something bad happening to the baby and not being able to do anything about it? This may indicate postpartum obsessive-compulsive disorder, a bit more severe than postpartum depression, but still in the postpartum mood disorder continuum, and still sane.
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 women are probably dealing with the severe end of the postpartum mood disorder spectrum. This is the line between crazy and sane. Only one or two out of every 1000 women will cope with this rare disorder. Their auditory and visual hallucinations can be quite dangerous. Women with postpartum psychosis need immediate medical attention and hospitalization, and yes, their babies will have to be taken care of by other people 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.