The Facts About Pregnancy and Postpartum Anxiety

Over the past ten years, postpartum depression has gained recognition, and doctor’s offices now routinely screen mothers for it. However, in my opinion, anxiety during pregnancy and after giving birth is almost as common and just as crippling. It is time to pay attention to how many women experience anxiety and to inform our community about the signs and how to get treatment.

Imagine how many women go through anxiety and don’t disclose it to their doctors or seek assistance. About 6% of pregnant women and 10% of new mothers report having anxiety. However, that statistic only includes the women who actually report it. You most certainly are not struggling alone, and aid is available in the form of effective treatment.

What Risk Factors Influence Pregnancy & Postpartum Anxiety?

The quick response is that we are aware that women who have these risk factors are particularly vulnerable:

• if she has a history of anxiety or if a mood condition, such as depression or anxiety, runs in her family.

• Previous experience with a mood reaction to hormonal changes, such as history of birth control, puberty, or premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), a severe type of PMS.

• if she doesn’t have much emotional and practical assistance.

• if there is a lot of relationship and life stress.

• being separated, divorced, or widowed.

• monetary pressure

• having gone through traumatic or stressful experiences in the past, particularly a loss of a pregnancy or a difficult delivery

• conflicted feelings regarding being pregnant.

• if she is experiencing a high-risk pregnancy, such as twins or other problems.

The long answer is that I don’t believe there is simply one aspect that determines whether you are at risk or not; rather, it is multifaceted. There is no doubt that social, psychological, and biological variables all contribute.

According to some experts, fast hormonal changes, particularly in the first and third trimesters, may be to blame for mood disorders including anxiety and despair. When a woman is getting ready to become pregnant, her blood levels of oestrogen and progesterone rise, but they drop very quickly after giving birth. The levels of neurotransmitters, which are brain chemicals that control mood, can fluctuate as a result of these dramatic variations in hormone levels.

During pregnancy, oestrogen levels increase, rising more than 100 times over normal. There is a relationship between oestrogen and serotonin (the “happy” brain chemical), but it isn’t a case of more oestrogen = more happiness since we do know that changes, fluctuations, and imbalances in serotonin can lead to emotional dysregulation and mood swings, even though we don’t fully understand how they interact with one another. Changes in oestrogen levels are particularly linked to anxiety and irritability.

It sounds excellent that progesterone levels influence mood and promote relaxation. Unfortunately, some women may experience exhaustion, depression, and a sense of hopelessness as a result of the elevated and fluctuating levels of progesterone seen throughout pregnancy and the dramatic decline in levels experienced after delivery. It seems sense that new mothers are prone to mood fluctuations.

Although hormones appear to play a part, it is yet unknown exactly how hormones work and why some women are more susceptible to changes in their levels than others. A woman is more prone to experience anxiety, in my opinion, when a combination of hormonal shifts, stress levels, a woman’s history of infertility problems, miscarriages, and trauma are present.

It’s crucial to keep in mind, however, that just because you are aware of one or more of these risk factors, it doesn’t always follow that you will suffer anxiety.

What Are The Different Types of Anxiety?

Pregnancy Anxiety

There are many changes throughout pregnancy. The emotional aspect of not knowing what is normal or not, along with the worry about the baby’s health and what will happen to your life once you become a parent, usually causes some level of worry, especially if this is your first child. The physical symptoms of fatigue and morning sickness can really affect how you function.

While some anxiety is acceptable, if it starts to interfere with your everyday functioning and you start to experience frequent, extremely anxious, and distressing thoughts, professional assistance may be required. Anxiety can be brought on by or made worse by the process of attempting to conceive, the worry of miscarriage, particularly if there has been a previous loss, or infertility therapies. Many of my clients claim to have always been apprehensive, while others claim that they weren’t concerned until they were pregnant. In either case, getting support while pregnant can greatly assist you avoid having anxiety continue to bother you after the baby is born.

Postpartum Anxiety

Every new parent worries that since they are inexperienced and may unintentionally do or refrain from doing something that harms their child when the baby is born. Are they consuming enough milk, sleeping well, and growing properly?

You don’t realise how absolutely defenceless a little human is until you have a baby, and then you are totally responsible for it! Even while these worries are completely normal and occur occasionally for everyone, they can occasionally be frightening.

Compared to ordinary new parent worries, postpartum anxiety is distinct, stronger, and more enduring. You most likely have postpartum anxiety if you experience any of the symptoms listed below for the most of the day. It is vital to seek support if they start anytime in the first year and last more than two weeks or if they last longer than a few weeks after the delivery (the baby blues affect 80% of women, but within 2 weeks mood swings normally quiet down).

Symptoms of Pregnancy & Postpartum Anxiety

Racing thoughts – There is no way to stop them from spinning in your head.

Worrying –It’s ongoing; you are aware that your fears are unwarranted, but it doesn’t make them cease, and as soon as you stop worrying about one thing, your thoughts turn to another. Concerns frequently center on your partner, yourself, and the baby, as well as any other children you may have. Women experience anxiety in the pit of their stomachs and worry that they are losing their minds.

Lack of concentration –Your memory is weak, and your attention tends to wander.

Restlessness – Despite being worn out, you are anxious and unable to unwind.

Sleep disturbance – Even when the infant is napping, you are unable to go asleep, and you do not awaken feeling refreshed.

Irritability – You might be able to keep it a secret from your pals, but your spouse will likely take the brunt of it.

Physical tension –your muscles are balls of tension, possibly leading to neck, shoulder and backaches.

No appetite –Women desire to shed the baby weight, but this is not the appropriate method. Even though you are aware that you need to stay hydrated and maintain a healthy level of energy, you may not have an appetite and frequently feel queasy.

There are subsets of anxiety symptoms that are important to differentiate.

Panic Attacks

Anxiety is like panic attacks when it is amplified by ten. They start out suddenly and come with a great worry of something terrible happening.

Shortness of breath, chest pain, dizziness, heart palpitations (patients frequently believe they are going to have a heart attack), sweating, and gastrointestinal disturbance are examples of physical symptoms.

Emotionally, you can feel like you’re about to lose control or go mad, and you might start to avoid situations where you’ve previously had panic attacks out of concern that it might happen again.

Although panic attacks seem to come in waves, it’s vital to remember that they will pass, won’t harm you, and that there are methods to relax your body and mind.

The Difference Between Postpartum OCD & Psychosis

Obsessive compulsive disorder is referred to as OCD in abbreviated form. Obsessions are unwanted, unexpected thoughts that enter your mind without your permission, and they frequently involve the baby being harmed during or after pregnancy or childbirth. The ideas, pictures, or visions can be absolutely horrifying and appear absolutely real. Women frequently keep these sentiments to themselves out of concern for what other people may think of them. Thoughts, however, become stronger and even more frequent when we allow them to remain in our heads.

The thoughts frequently (though not always) come with an urge (an overwhelming belief that you MUST do a certain behaviour or think certain thoughts in the belief that this will stop the bad thing from actually happening).

Women worry that they are going mad if they have these kinds of thoughts. When stories about postpartum women make the headlines, it is typically because the lady has postpartum psychosis and has committed a horrible crime, such as harming her kid or driving off a bridge. Although the mainstream media covers those stories in great detail because they are so horrific, barely 0.1% of new mothers actually experience postpartum psychosis ( termed PPP). IT IS UNIQUE! The likelihood that you are having a psychotic episode (i.e., are out of touch with reality) and will actually cause harm is EXTREMELY RARE but it makes news because only approximately 4% of this 0.1% harm actually injure themselves or their kid.

Postpartum OCD affects between 3–5% of women, so it is rather common. The most crucial thing to remember is that if you are aware that acting on these thoughts would be a poor idea, you are likely experiencing OCD rather than psychosis.

The major signs of PPP are hallucinations (seeing or hearing things that aren’t there), delusions or unusual beliefs, feeling extremely agitated and hyper, having less need for or being unable to sleep, paranoia and suspicion, and abrupt mood fluctuations. In a psychotic condition, a woman’s delusions and beliefs are very relevant to her and make perfect sense to her (but they might seem nonsensical to others). A familial history of psychosis or a history of bipolar disorder in the past are risk factors for PPP. Hospitalisation and prompt treatment are needed. You see, it is totally different from having dreadful ideas that cause worry while maintaining awareness of reality.

PTSD After Childbirth

It’s more typical than you might imagine for women to experience postpartum PTSD after a challenging delivery. Up to 6% of moms may experience it, and it is brought on by a real or imagined trauma during delivery. Typically, the traumatic experiences leave a woman feeling as though her life or the life of her unborn child is in danger either during birth or immediately after.

Fully developed postpartum PTSD symptoms may include intrusive reliving of a past traumatic event (which in this case may have been the childbirth itself, the period immediately following, or the events prior to going to the hospital), flashbacks or nightmares, avoidance of stimuli related to the event, persistent increased arousal (irritability, difficulty sleeping, hypervigilance, exaggerated startle response), anxiety and panic attacks, as well as a sense of detachment.

In my practice, I frequently observe that women who have experienced a challenging labour don’t always experience flashbacks and nightmares, but instead are left with lingering worry, hypervigilance, and guilt over how the labour went, or both. Please read When Your Childbirth Wasn’t What You Hoped For at the bottom of this page if you have experienced a traumatic childbirth and would like to learn more about this subject.

You can discover techniques to reduce your anxiety with the help of cognitive therapy, a problem-solving form of treatment. You can also learn new coping mechanisms to handle the stress in your life, improve your self-care, and feel more confident as a mother. Our focus will be on the “now and now” and how to cope right now as well as discover skills that will continue to help you in the future, even if we may talk a little bit about the past to understand who you are today.

This kind of treatment trains you to recognize the harmful thoughts you have that make you feel more worried. You’ll discover techniques to counteract and dispel these unfavourable ideas, and you’ll begin to approach problems from a unique, more constructive perspective. There are also particular approaches for the various forms of anxiety, including general anxiety, panic attacks, OCD, and trauma from difficult or lost pregnancies.

I can only work with clients who reside in Illinois or Florida thanks to my professional licence. Finding a therapist with specialised training in both CBT and pregnant and postpartum mood disorders is crucial if you are unable to work with me. Additionally, you’ll want your therapist to have years of post-training experience working with expectant and new mothers. Additionally, I believe it is crucial to work with a therapist who you feel heard by and who is easy to talk to since therapy is a partnership between you—you are the expert on yourself—and your therapist, who is skilled in a variety of coping mechanisms.