Postpartum depression
Many women experience difficult emotions after childbirth. Here are some tips to help you understand these feelings and when to call your doctor about them.
Bringing a new baby home is a major event. Although it is often a joyful period, there may be times when your emotions and moods are not what you have expected. Many women experience "baby blues." These are some tips to help you understand feelings of sadness and when you should call your care provider about them.
Maternity blues
As many as three of four women will have short periods of mood swings, tearfulness, or irritability during the first week after birth, which can be worse when you are tired or anxious. If you are not sleeping, or you are becoming increasingly upset, you should call to talk with your care provider.
Postpartum depression
About one of every ten women will develop serious depression during the first year after birth, more often in the first few months. Symptoms include:
- Angry, meaning, feeling like you might explode
- Can't make decisions
- Crying a lot
- Difficulty sleeping, meaning, you can't sleep, even when the baby is sleeping
- Fear that you will hurt yourself or your baby
- Feeling guilty
- Feeling like a failure as a mother
- Feeling like you are not normal or real anymore
- Feeling lonely
- Feelings of anxiousness and insecurity
- Feelings of panic
- Feeling overwhelmed
- Inability to concentrate or focus
- Loss of appetite
- Thinking the baby might be better off without you
Don't wait. If you have any of these symptoms, please call your care provider as soon as possible.
Postpartum psychosis
A very small number of women will experience a more severe postpartum reaction in which they lose touch with reality. Women who develop postpartum psychosis may hear or see things that are not there, or exhibit strange and sometimes dangerous behavior. This is a true emergency and help must be sought immediately.