What is perinatal mental health?

Many people have heard of “postpartum” or “postpartum depression”, but not many know what that really means or looks like, let alone what to do if they need support.

Let’s start by defining what “perinatal” means.

Perinatal is the period of time from when you become pregnant through postpartum (which we like to define as 3 years after birth!)

So, perinatal mental health is mental health concerns that happen between the time of getting pregnant up until 3 years after birth.

Some of the common symptoms that we look for during this time are:

-Feeling overly anxious (ex. Constantly checking on baby)

-Difficulty falling asleep or staying asleep (outside of what is normal with having a newborn or normal pregnancy discomfort)

-Overeating or undereating

-Checking out

-Checking behaviors (ex. Needing to wash or check bottles multiple times and still not feeling like they are clean enough)

-Feeling down

-Thoughts of harming yourself or harming your baby

-Intrusive thoughts

-Muscle tension

-Anger or irritability

If you resonate with one or more of these symptoms, your next thought is probably “Well, now what?”.

First, know that perinatal mental health concerns are relatively common. This will impact 1 in 5 to 7 women and 1 in 10 men. Perinatal mental health concerns will impact every race, gender, and socioeconomic status equally. This all means that it is not your fault and does not mean that you are failing in anyway, but rather that growing and birthing and caring for a whole new human is hard in a lot of different ways.

If you or someone you know is struggling, I would highly encourage you to reach out to a therapist that specializes in this area. These are clinicians that truly get it and know how to help with these concerns. There are talk and somatic modalities that have proven to be effective with these concerns. These clinicians are also very good at referring to other types of providers that can supplement to support overall wellness.

Is there anything I can do so that I don’t develop a perinatal mental health concern?

The short answer is no.

The long answer is, there are certain protective factors that lower your risk at developing mental health concerns in this period, however, you could do all of these and still develop mental health concerns or do none of these and not develop mental health concerns.

Here are some things that we list as being protective factors during this time:

-Social support  

-Breastfeeding (we know and standby “fed is best”, however, breastfeeding does release hormones that make us feel good which does lower mental health risk)

-Having providers you can trust (ie. Therapist, OBGYN, Chiropractor, Doula, etc)

What puts me more at risk?

-History of mental health concerns (either with your or in your biological family)

-History of trauma

-Having a traumatic birth

-Birth of multiples

-NICU stay

-Financial struggles

-Being a single or teen mother

-No social support

-Lack of professional who screen for perinatal mental health concerns

The whole of this is, no one knows who is going to develop concerns during pregnancy and postpartum and who isn’t. There are people that are more or less at risk, but ultimately it depends on a bunch of factors. Also, it doesn’t have to be this big scary thing! If you talk with your providers about your symptoms and make sure that you are getting the support that you need when you need it, perinatal mental health concerns are very treatable and not something you have to suffer with!

We offer complimentary 15-minute consultations at our clinic. If you or someone you know is struggling, or not sure if you are struggling or just “adjusting”, feel free to reach out! We are always happy to talk about how we can be helpful or refer you to other clinics or providers that may be more helpful as well! Click here to schedule a complimentary consultation today!