Why Did Nobody Tell Me it could be more than the baby blues?

Yeah.

What we know about baby blues and maybe stereotypes and expectations that we have around baby blues or postpartum lows.

And Kat and I were kind of having this conversation around this idea of what is a quote unquote normal baby.

amount of low struggle hard in matricence and postpartum versus what might be clinically significant and what that looks like.

You know, how do I know whether I'm experiencing the these symptoms as part of the enormous adjustment of becoming a mother or whether this is actually something that really requires intervention and support.

Because Kat and I will have this conversation with each other quite often in terms of the things that we tend to struggle with during matrescence in any other circumstance or any other situation.

would be clinically significant.

They would be things that we would be as therapists really paying attention to and really be concerned with.

And then I think sometimes mothers that do struggle in a clinically significant space oftentimes are minimized and dismissed as like well that's normal because you're in that postpartum period and so I think it makes postnatal mental health really really tricky In terms of how to ascertain what struggling may be understandable and maybe it's tricky, right? Quote, unquote, normal versus what might be relentless, disproportionate, interfering with daily functioning, right? and maybe having more of a pathological or clinically significant impact on someone's life outside of what those quote unquote normal struggles, lows, experiences during that postpartum period may look like.

Absolutely.

It is such a tricky distinction, you know, working in the space without fully knowing someone's history and And clinically, if, like I was saying this to Ames off mic, if there is a mum in front of you who is experiencing something like postnatal anxiety or symptoms of anxiety in the postnatal period, if this mum had never experienced anxiety before, that would be clinically significant.

You know, there is something that has changed here for you.

Yeah.

But at the same time, this mum had experienced anxiety and that was something that they were familiar with and that would mean that is it as clinically significant because this is likely how they've coped.

And so where I think as therapists something that I do struggle with in the work that we do is postnatal depression, postnatal depletion, postnatal anxiety, intrusive thoughts, for some women it makes complete sense why we are experiencing these symptoms because we are experiencing going through one of the biggest changes hormonally, physically, psychologically, emotionally in the shortest amount of time.

And so therefore, wouldn't drops in mood, wouldn't heightened anxiety, wouldn't intrusive thoughts be part of that adjustment? And at what point, where is the line between normality versus this being really unhelpful and really impacting the on daily functioning and I think that that's something that Ames and I are struggling and I guess like I think that's it that there isn't really this formula of when is it abnormal there are some things that we'll speak to in this episode but I think we just wanted to prime and begin this episode and preface and say that every mum will be really different.

Every experience of anxiety shows up differently.

Every experience of PND shows up differently.

Every experience of intrusive thoughts and postpartum psychosis, it will show up really differently.

And what one mum might experience and be able to work through, another mum at the very same breath might really struggle to work through.

And so we wanted to kind of bring in this conversation early and just say, yeah, that there isn't always a neat little box we can put people into when it comes to mental health as a whole.

But secondly, within motherhood, because there's so many more variables we're contending with that blur the lines here.

But we do want to go into some distinguishing factors, you know, like how do I know that what I'm experiencing isn't baby blues or is it a more longer lasting postnatal depression is it kind of is this anxiety is this heightened stress response to a really big adjustment in my life or when does it turn into pna is it sleep deprivation is it pnd is it postpartum depletion where is the line here so we wanted to kind of bring that up and talk it through and also if you've never seen a psychologist or therapist before we do want to say that you do not have to be diagnosed with specifically like P&D, P&A, to seek help.

And I think if you are questioning, you know, is this bad enough that I do maybe need to get a little bit more support and help, then it probably is a bit of a sign that you need it regardless of whether you meet criteria for a diagnosis.

I think that's so important to name.