Motherhood can be challenging, exhausting, and wonderful.
I provide therapy for mothers at any stage, whether you are trying to conceive, pregnant, postpartum, or having difficulty with motherhood.
Pregnancy and postpartum is a time when your body goes through so many changes. It is common to feel worried, sad, or numb during this time.
Many women also experience perinatal mood or anxiety disorders, which is a fancy way of saying they can feel sad, worried, or angry.
I provide comprehensive assessment and therapy for perinatal depression and anxiety, perinatal panic attacks, perinatal PTSD.
Perinatal Depression and Anxiety: Depression and anxiety can occur during pregnancy and in the postpartum period. Postpartum depression often looks like overwhelming anxiety. Women may experience deep sadness, crying spells, disruptions in sleep and appetite. They feel disorientated and confused, as if in a fog. In some cases, they feel emotionally detached from their infant and describe the sensation of going through the motions without an affectionate connection to their infant. They have powerful feelings of inadequacy, which in many cases, leaves new mothers unable to cope and/or terrified of being left alone with the baby, believing that they won’t know how to care for their crying infant. There are tremendous feelings of hopelessness, guilt and sometimes a conviction that they should be replaced by another, more suitable mother.
Perinatal Panic Attacks: Panic attacks strongly resembles the symptoms of a heart attack – pressure on the chest, difficulty breathing, palpitations, dizziness, numbness and tingling. New mothers with panic disorder are often awakened out of their sleep by an attack.
Perinatal Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: Unexpected events during pregnancy or childbirth can be perceived as traumatic for some new mothers. For other mothers, the act of giving birth may be a traumatic reminder of earlier events in their lives, like sexual, physical or emotional abuse.
This information is an excerpt from Maternal Mental Health Now.