Feeling like crying? Or are you constantly on edge?
Have you been experiencing this moodiness since you gave birth?
You might be amongst the 80% of new mothers who experience ‘baby blues’.
But how are these baby blues different from postnatal/postpartum depression? Let us find out.
For Jurassic World star Bryce Dallas Howard, motherhood didn’t feel as magical as she expected. “Nothing. I felt nothing. I couldn’t genuinely cry, or laugh, or be moved by anything. For the sake of those around me, including my son, I pretended.”
Like Howard, many mothers come face-to-face with some unexpectedly heavy feelings immediately after their child’s birth. For some, it is a whole range of emotions such as irritability, unhappiness, weeping to feeling absolutely nothing or feeling constantly exhausted. These are common symptoms of baby blues.
It is common to have these symptoms in the first few weeks. However, if they worsen and persist longer than a month, it could be a case of depression after pregnancyl, commonly called postpartum depression (PPD) or postnatal depression (PND).
Postnatal depression symptoms are more severe than those of baby blues and while baby blues ease up usually within 2–3 weeks, depression goes on longer and if you don’t receive the right help, could worsen with time.
So what does Postpartum depression look like in real life?
It took actor Alanis Morisette 14 months to realise and recognise she had postpartum depression. “For me I would just wake up and feel like I was covered in tar and it wasn’t the first time I’d experienced depression so I just thought Oh, well, this feels familiar, I’m depressed, I think,” she shared in an interview.
Former Supermodel Chrissy Teigen couldn’t figure out what was going on for a long time. “I had everything I needed to be happy. And yet, for much of the last year, I felt unhappy. I couldn’t figure out why I was so unhappy. I blamed it on being tired and possibly growing out of the role ” she told a reporter many years later.
It is often hard to distinguish between symptoms of baby blues and postpartum depression. In fact often both of these go undetected. Most mothers are so tired and exhausted while their body is recovering from giving birth and at the same time they are also busy with babycare and breastfeeding and doing all of it on very little sleep! The heavy and sad feelings as well as the irritability, fatigue and anxiety feel like a natural result of it all.
Howard adds that “Postpartum depression is hard to describe, the way the body, mind and spirit fracture in the wake of what most believe to be a celebratory time.”
Teigen had difficulty sharing about her condition with her doctor because she felt selfish. Even though 15–20% of the new mothers suffer from PPD, they do not share their feelings with anyone including their spouses or doctors. A large part of the reason is the social taboo around it and the shame and guilt that mothers undergo at what they see as a failure when they feel unhappy or are unable to connect with their baby. However, lack of awareness and professional help only worsens their situation.
