What Is Postpartum Mental Health? Understanding the Full Picture
Postpartum mental health encompasses far more than just postpartum depression. From postpartum anxiety and intrusive thoughts to the profound identity shift of matrescence, new mothers face a complex array of mental health challenges that deserve recognition and support. In this comprehensive conversation with perinatal mental health specialist Jen Mendoza, LCSW, we explore what every expectant and new parent should know about postpartum mental health.
Note: Information in this episode is based on personal experiences and is provided for educational and entertainment purposes only. Information in the podcast does not constitute personal professional advice. We encourage you to independently evaluate any content and consult with appropriate professionals as needed for your specific circumstances.
Getting Started with Baby Podcast
A Few Key Quotes
On the duality of motherhood:
"Two things can be true at the same time. We can have really been wanting this baby so badly and it can be really, really hard – maybe even the hardest thing we've ever done." — Jen Mendoza
On recognizing postpartum anxiety:
"Once we familiarize ourselves with our baby...if mom is constantly worrying through out the day on various topics, if she's feeling like she's having racing thoughts, if she's feeling constantly on edge...if she's having trouble with sleep or rest even when baby is sleeping—that is not a normal thing." — Jen Mendoza
On getting help:
“If you feel like you're struggling, if you feel like you need help, it doesn’t matter if it’s postpartum anxiety or depression or something else—you deserve support. You don't have to get to the point of struggling so badly that you are just absolutely burnt out and barely making it through the day to seek out help.” — Jen Mendoza
On the identity shift of motherhood:
"We really need to start looking at motherhood as a developmental phase...similar to adolescence. We are going through hormone changes, identity shifts...this entrance into motherhood is a time of matrescence. It's this transformational journey of our identity, our relationships." — Jen Mendoza
On trusting yourself:
"Underneath all of that, even underneath your uncertainty, you can find that your intuition as a mom is still there, and that you don't need to show up perfectly...you just need to do it in a way that feels true to you"— Jen Mendoza
Understanding Postpartum Mental Health: Essential Takeaways
- Prepare for Postpartum, Not Just Birth While planning your birth experience is important, don't miss the opportunity to really prepare for the postpartum time—not just the first six weeks, but the first one to two years. This includes planning for physical supports like meals and rest, but also planning for your mental health. Know the difference between normal postpartum adjustment and signs of postpartum anxiety or depression, and identify resources before you need them.
- Postpartum Anxiety Is More Common Than You Think Many people have heard of postpartum depression, but postpartum anxiety is actually extremely common—often more prevalent in clinical practice than depression. Signs include constant worrying throughout the day, racing thoughts, feeling constantly on edge, having trouble sleeping even when baby is sleeping, feeling disconnected from your baby, irritability or rage, and intrusive thoughts. If these symptoms persist beyond the first two weeks or are taking up significant time in your day, reach out for help.
- Intrusive Thoughts Are Common and Don't Mean You're a Danger Research shows that most parents experience some level of intrusive thoughts in the postpartum period—unwanted, scary thoughts like "what if I drop the baby" or worries about accidentally harming the baby. These can also be scary images. While common in early postpartum, if these thoughts persist months out and you're spending significant time either pushing them away or getting sucked into them, this may be a sign of postpartum anxiety or perinatal OCD, and you should seek support from a perinatal mental health specialist.
- Your Support People Will Likely Notice Struggles First When you're in the thick of postpartum struggles, you're often not going to be the one waving the white flag. Your partner, family, or close friends who knew you well before pregnancy are often the people who will notice something is off first. Have conversations during pregnancy about what normal postpartum adjustment looks like versus warning signs, and give your support people permission to speak up if they're worried about you.
- You Don't Have to Be in Crisis to Deserve Support You don't have to get to the point of struggling so badly that you're absolutely burnt out and barely making it through the day to seek help. If you feel like you're struggling or need help—whether it's postpartum anxiety, depression, or something else—you deserve support. Consider connecting with a perinatal mental health specialist even during pregnancy, even if just for one or two sessions, so you have someone to reach back out to if needed.
- Motherhood Is a Developmental Phase, Not a Quick Adjustment We need to start viewing the entrance into motherhood as "matrescence"—a developmental phase similar to adolescence, with hormone changes, identity shifts, and transformational changes to our relationships and sense of self. This isn't something you'll fully adjust to by the end of the fourth trimester or when you go back to work. This shift lasts the first one to two years after having a baby, and you'll go through it again with each subsequent child in a unique way.
- There's No "Bouncing Back"—and That's Okay Rather than trying to get back to who you were before or "bouncing back, "focus on getting to know this new version of yourself. Meet yourself with compassion and be present where you are now. What made you feel good before might not be what works now, and that's okay. Figure out what makes you feel good and fulfilled in this new phase, whether that's finding new ways to connect with your partner without leaving the house or discovering different forms of self-care that fit your current reality.
- The Best Investment Is Support Whether it's a birth or postpartum doula, a meal delivery service, or your professional support team (therapist, chiropractor, lactation consultant), the things that help you take care of yourself and take something off your plate in postpartum are worth their weight in gold. These aren't luxuries—they're essentials for postpartum parents.
Frequently Asked Questions About Postpartum Mental Health
What's the difference between baby blues and postpartum depression?
Baby blues typically occur within the first couple of weeks postpartum and resolve on their own. Symptoms include tearfulness, mood swings, and feeling on edge. Postpartum mood disorders persist beyond a couple of weeks and include more severe symptoms that interfere with daily functioning.
How long does postpartum anxiety last?
Postpartum anxiety can develop anytime within the first year after birth. With proper treatment and support, symptoms can improve significantly within weeks to months. However, the identity shift of matrescence can last 1-2 years.
When should I seek help for postpartum mental health concerns?
You don't need to be in crisis to seek help. If you're experiencing persistent worry, racing thoughts, trouble sleeping when baby sleeps, intrusive thoughts, or feeling disconnected from your baby beyond the first two weeks, reach out to a perinatal mental health specialist.
What are intrusive thoughts in postpartum?
Intrusive thoughts are unwanted, scary thoughts or images about harm coming to your baby, such as "what if I drop the baby?" Research shows most parents experience some intrusive thoughts postpartum. If they persist beyond early postpartum or take up significant time in your day, seek support.
What is matrescence?
Matrescence is the developmental phase of becoming a mother, similar to adolescence. It involves hormone changes, identity shifts, and transformational changes to relationships and sense of self, lasting 1-2 years after having a baby.
Postpartum Mental Health Resources and Support Services
Postpartum Support International
An organization offering a helpline, free support groups, and a directory of therapists, psychologists, and prescribers who specialize in perinatal and postpartum mental health. They have extensive training or certification in this specialty area.
Visit postpartum.net
Professional Support Services to Consider Postpartum
Consider investing in support like:
- Birth or postpartum doula services
- Meal delivery services
- Perinatal mental health therapist (ideally connect during pregnancy, even for just 1-2 sessions)
- Other care providers that help you feel supported (chiropractor, pelvic floor physical therapy, lactation consultant)
Technology Considerations for Anxious New Parents
Be mindful about products like smart socks, heart rate monitors, and detailed tracking apps. While they can be helpful for some families (especially those with medical needs), ask yourself: Does my temperament tend toward anxiety? Will this information help me or stress me out more? Talk to your care providers about what's truly necessary for your specific situation.
Full Interview: Expert Insights on Postpartum Mental Health
[edited from audio transcript for clarity]
Jen Mendoza's Background and Personal Journey
Jane Dashevsky: You've probably heard of postpartum depression, maybe the baby blues—but mental health and motherhood is so much more than that. From postpartum anxiety to intrusive thoughts to managing the huge identity shift that is motherhood, we're getting into it all today.
I'm here with Jen Mendoza, Licensed Clinical Social Worker and a specialist in pregnancy, postpartum, and perinatal mental health. Not only that, but she's also a mom to three little ones herself.
Welcome to the podcast.
Jen Mendoza: Hey, thanks so much for having me. I'm so glad to be here.
Jane: To get started, could you share a little bit about your background and your family?
Jen: Like you said, I'm a licensed clinical social worker. I am in private practice now, and my practice really specializes in supporting women through pregnancy, postpartum, and early motherhood. On the personal side, I'm a mom of three. My kids are five, three, and one, so I am very much in the thick of early motherhood myself.
Jane: You have your hands full.
Jen: Oh, so full. It's like every day is wild and chaotic, but really good too. It's really fun. One of my little ones actually has a rare genetic disorder, so she's medically complex, and that adds a layer to our family that's a little bit different. But we're so grateful that she's well and she's healthy. That journey specifically is really woven into why I ended up opening this practice and focusing on the things that I focus on.
Jane: I'd love to get into that. How did you get into this particular specialty?
Jen: Prior to specializing in perinatal mental health, I was already a therapist. My career was working for the military, actually, so I worked with active-duty service members and their spouses. While I really loved what I was doing working for the military, once I went through my own healing journey, it just lit such a fire in me to want to support moms going through what I went through. That's when I pivoted and really dove headfirst into perinatal mental health specialty.
Jane: At what point in your motherhood journey did you decide to make that pivot?
Jen: I always describe my experience as having become kind of an expert in complicated motherhood journeys from the very beginning. My husband and I were married for over ten years before we had our first child, so we struggled with infertility. We had to do IVF. It almost feels like as moms or as women, when we go through these really difficult experiences and then we get to this pregnancy, we're like, "Okay, the hard part is over. The struggle is over. Everything's going to be quote unquote normal from here on out." And maybe for some people it is, but unfortunately for me it wasn't.
The complicated nature of my motherhood journey continued. I went on to have a traumatic birth experience and did a lot of work and healing from that. Then I had two subsequent children since that initial infertility and IVF experience. Walking into having a second baby and unknowingly, in the early postpartum experience, realizing that there was more going on than typical feeding struggles—that led us down this path of procedures and specialists and diagnosis until we got to this place of, "Okay, we have this unexpected journey of a child with a rare genetic disorder and now complex medical needs."
That was a whole other beast that then led me to struggling with postpartum anxiety, which was such a surprise to me because I'm a mom, I've been through this, I've had one kid. I thought, "I'm going to go into this so much more prepared and so much more confident the second time around." But when you have a postpartum experience that just really rocks you, nothing can really prepare you for that. This complicated motherhood experience has just followed me, and that's why I say I specialize in this through lived experience. I'm really just taking all of that and everything I've learned and allowing that to fuel the work that I do now with moms on their own complicated motherhood journeys.
The Reality Check: Expectations vs. Reality in Motherhood
Jane: One thing you talked about—I think this affects a lot of moms, no matter how they come to be pregnant or what they expected it to be like. I remember those first few weeks I was like, "I think we ruined our lives," you know? We had wanted the baby so badly so that was such a surprising feeling. What kind of advice do you have for moms as they're trying to reconcile these expectations with their reality?
Jen: That experience you had is so common. It's so hard, I think, for us as moms, because when you want this so badly, and you're finally there and your reality is so different than what you expected, it is so jarring. When moms go through these experiences, the biggest thing is recognizing that we as moms put so much pressure on ourselves to be a certain way, or we have this expectation of how we're going to feel in motherhood. Then you have this added noise—I'm going to call it noise—from society or social media or the groups that we're in. I don't know if you did this, but I joined all the due date groups.
Jane: Oh yeah, for the first pregnancy. And then I did not for the subsequent ones. The pregnancy test line ones are the worst.
Jen: Those are bad. The expectations that we put on ourselves in motherhood are so real. For me, even before motherhood, I'm that person that's going to research and I'm going to read the books and I'm going to listen to the podcast, and I'm going to be so prepared for this new job. The difficult thing is that there's so much about motherhood that is so out of our control. No matter how much we prep and prepare and plan and think about, we may not have control over how it goes—from our birth experience to postpartum time to feeding. Feeding journeys can really bring out a lot of stress and tension when it doesn't go like we'd like it to go.
The thing about us moms is we are really good at turning on ourselves. "I should be able to do this better. I should be enjoying this more." We see these images and these perfectly curated social media posts, and when we don't have that experience, when we are over here just surviving or just trying to make it through this really crazy thing that we just went through, and now we have this newborn baby who we don't really know that well—yeah, we love them, but like, what did I just do? We were living a totally fine life, and now we're not sleeping, we're eating trash, when did I shower last?
It is so real and so heavy to have these—what I'm going to call intrusive thoughts—these unwanted, negative, scary, dark thoughts about what we're going through. It can be about the health of our baby or safety of our baby, or even our own health. Two things can be true at the same time. We can have really been longing for and wanting this baby so badly, and it can be really, really hard and maybe even the hardest thing we've ever done.
Preparing for Postpartum: What Matters Most
Jane: I think that is a very true statement, and there's always that duality in it. I would love to come back to something that you were saying about the preparedness and the pressure that moms put on themselves to get it right. What are the things that you wish, having worked with a lot of moms and having experienced three births and post-birth periods yourself—what do you wish that moms were really better prepared for versus the things they think they're preparing for?
Jen: For a lot of the moms that I work with, when I start working with them in postpartum, often what I hear is, "I was so focused on preparing for the birth—having the birth plan, what do I want this experience to look like?" And they didn't spend as much time preparing for postpartum. When I'm lucky enough to work with a mom while she's pregnant, yes, I want to talk about the birth. Let's talk about what your preferences are and what you would like for this to look like. That is so important and valid to want to plan and prepare for that.
But I don't want to miss this huge opportunity to really plan for this postpartum time—not just the early postpartum, not just the first six weeks, not just the fourth trimester, but really expanding out to the first one to two years. What is this time going to look like? Let's plan for early postpartum. Let's get the supports in place. One of the things that I find so often with the moms that I work with is we just do not have enough support. Without having these supports, it just makes it more difficult. It adds to the heaviness and feelings of "who am I?" and the identity shift that is going to be an ongoing process for us. Also, the loneliness and isolation of feeling like, "What is wrong with me that I feel this way in this postpartum time?"
So, let's plan for that. And what that looks like is not just planning for the physical supports—we want to talk about meals, we want to talk about what rest and recovery is going to look like, all of those things. But also planning for our mental health postpartum, so that if I'm feeling a certain way, do I already have the knowledge—is this a typical normal postpartum adjustment, or is this maybe something else? Am I maybe looking at postpartum anxiety or postpartum depression, and what are the resources that I can tap into to help me with that?
Jane: I've talked to so many moms who in retrospect, but not while they were going through it, realize that they actually had a pretty traumatic birth and were carrying that around for a while. Or they realized many months afterwards that they were actually suffering from postpartum anxiety. Some of these things you don't even know to ask questions about or to look for. So what do you do in that situation? How do you start thinking about that even as you're pregnant?
Jen: I think the reality is that for most of us, when we are in this postpartum time and if we are struggling, we are often not going to be the one that's waving the white flag and saying, "Actually, I think that this is more than just the baby blues or I think this is more than just a normal postpartum adjustment thing." It's most often going to be the people around us—our partners if we're partnered, our support people, our family, our friends. Who are those people in our circle that know you really well, especially from pregnancy or even pre-pregnancy? Those are the people that are often going to notice that something else is going on first.
I'm a big fan of having these conversations with our support person, whether it's our partner or our family. Really being able to have these conversations of "this is what I'm hearing is a normal postpartum experience." For example, baby blues is a normal postpartum experience that can happen within the first two weeks, and it can almost feel like a mini postpartum depression. We may be extra tearful. We may feel like we're having difficulty regulating ourselves. Maybe we're having more irritation and just feeling more on edge. The cause of that is believed to be part of this really intensive hormone drop after we give birth, and of course add in the sleeplessness and learning this new baby. That is not considered a perinatal mood and anxiety disorder. This is considered more in the realm of normal.
But anything outside of that first two-week window, if we are continuing to struggle or if those symptoms exacerbate or get worse, then it's not baby blues. We're looking at something that's maybe more in the world of a perinatal mental health issue or postpartum anxiety or postpartum depression.
One thing that I'm finding is there can be this gap where a lot of moms don't know or they haven't heard about postpartum anxiety. It's honestly something that I see so much of—I see more in my practice than postpartum depression. So having these conversations with partners and family members: "Hey, these are the signs and symptoms. If I am struggling, what are some ways that you can communicate that with me?" If I'm talking to my partner, "I think if you approached me from this place of 'Hey, I'm seeing these things, I'm worried about you, I think it would be a good idea to talk to somebody,' are you open to that?"
If you feel like you're struggling, if you feel like you need help, truthfully, I don't care what it is. I don't care if it is postpartum anxiety, depression—I don't care what it is. You deserve support. You don't have to get to the point of struggling so badly that you are just absolutely burnt out and barely making it through the day. You don't have to get to that point to seek out help.
I'm actually a big fan of identifying some support people. I do this with the pregnant moms that I work with. Even if you don't start working with a therapist—which is great if you do. Even if you do one or two sessions during your pregnancy—that way, if you’re struggling in postpartum, you have somebody that you know you can reach out to and get back on their schedule. But even if we don't take that full step, even just going on websites—a lot of therapists these days will offer free consultations so that you can figure out, "Would this be a good fit to work together?" That way you have a few names, and if you are now in postpartum and realizing it might be a good idea to talk to somebody, you don't have to then be trying to do research to find a therapist in that level of hard sleep deprivation when you're just trying to get through the day.
Recognizing Postpartum Anxiety: Signs and Symptoms
Jane: I love what you said about making sure that you have support people around you who are also able to recognize signs. One thing that I've heard a lot from people who've gone through postpartum anxiety is they really didn't know to recognize a sign as postpartum anxiety, and I don't know that their partner knew either. So what are some of the signs that you're now not in a normal area of worry?
Jen: I think this is also part of why it's so hard for us to seek help in postpartum if we do struggle with anxiety, because it almost feels like, "Of course I have this new baby. Of course I'm going to be worried about how they're doing. Of course I'm worried about how much they're eating. Of course I'm worried about, are they breathing while they're sleeping?" There's definitely a time in postpartum, especially in the beginning, as we are getting adjusted to our baby and learning our baby, where in the beginning this worry is valid. We're trying to figure this out. I don't know about your babies, but babies make some funky noises when they're first born.
Jane: Oh yeah -- like little dinosaurs.
Jen: It's like, "What is going on over there? Are they okay? Are they good?" Once we familiarize ourselves with our baby and once they get a little bit older too, that kind of stuff levels out for a lot of babies. Some signs that a mom might be struggling beyond the normal postpartum adjustment or normal worry are things like if they are constantly worrying throughout the day on various topics, if they're feeling like they're having racing thoughts, if they're feeling constantly on edge.
Another big sign is if they're having trouble with sleep or rest even when their baby is sleeping. For example, the baby is napping, but then the mom is really preoccupied with "Let me do the dishes and cleanup" because they're just on a motor. They just can't slow down. That is also not a normal thing. This should be the time that we're resting. It should be the time that we're recovering. But if a mom is feeling like "I just can't even slow down enough to actually rest," that's a sign. Other signs include feeling disconnected from your baby or not finding joy in the things that you used to do. The other part of the anxiety piece is that it can also look like irritability, rage, and feeling more on edge.
Then the other thing I mentioned earlier—intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts can be a symptom of anxiety or even perinatal OCD, which is an anxiety disorder. Intrusive thoughts are these unwanted, scary thoughts that can come into our mind in this postpartum time. Things like "I'm walking down the stairs holding my baby and this thought pops into my mind, like, what if I drop the baby?" Or just having worries, fears or thoughts about something bad happening to the baby, or you accidentally harming the baby. These intrusive thoughts can also be scary images.
This is very destabilizing for postpartum parents. The research shows that it's actually very common—honestly, most parents have some level of intrusive thoughts in postpartum. We will see that happening, especially in the early postpartum time. But if it is persisting and let's say we are now a couple months out and this is still happening and it's taking up a lot of time of our day, that is also going to be another warning sign that this is more than just a normal postpartum adjustment.
Finding the Right Perinatal Mental Health Support
Jane: Let's say that you or your partner have noticed that some signs are starting to seem outside of what you would expect from just a general postpartum period, and they're seeking out help. What can they expect?
Jen: I really encourage pregnant and postpartum individuals to seek out somebody with experience and expertise in this perinatal time. I just think it's really important because those of us with perinatal training or certification in perinatal mental health, we have training that helps us tease out what is going on for this person? What are these scary thoughts? Is it related to a specific diagnosis? And we're trained in how to help clients through this.
I'm a big fan of Postpartum Support International. It's an organization where they have a helpline and you can also access free support groups. They have a directory that's full of therapists, psychologists, prescribers that really specialize in perinatal and postpartum mental health. They either have extensive training or they're certified in perinatal and postpartum mental health. I feel like that's just such a great resource.
So many women I work with have been the fixer, the problem solver, the person that's doing it all. I really want for them to have this experience where the therapy room can be a place where they can be met exactly where they're at. I've met with people a day postpartum. Babies are welcome into session. I've done sessions with moms in their bed, nursing their baby, feeding their babies. I've done sessions with moms after they've gone back to work and they're heading out to their car during their lunch break so that we can have a therapy session.
For me, it's really about come as you are. I will hold space for you so that you can share these heavy things that you're thinking about and going through without worrying that you're going to be judged or criticized or met with anything but empathy and validation. Also in my practice, what's really important is a trauma-informed approach to help you work through those things and get back to a more regulated nervous system.
Understanding Matrescence: The Identity Shift of Motherhood
Jane: One thing that you mentioned is that a lot of times you're talking to people who are coming in and they have this identity of fixer and problem solver and all of this. One thing that's true, whatever your experience of pregnancy is, is that the before and the after of having a child really changes a lot of things. It can really change your self-perception. Certainly, your relationship can be impacted. I'd love to hear a little bit about that and if you have any advice for moms navigating that shift.
Jen: I really think this time can feel really destabilizing because of all of those things that you mentioned, and because there isn't enough information that helps us recognize that really, this entrance into motherhood is more than just "Okay, you've got a baby, you're good to go." We need to start looking at motherhood as a developmental phase. There's this word that's been coined—matrescence.
We're trying to make this word a thing to really describe this developmental period—similar to adolescence. In adolescence, we are going through hormone changes, identity shifts, and we've got a name for it. We know how to describe this. We know what to expect. Similarly, this entrance into motherhood is a time of matrescence. It's this transformational journey of our identity, our relationships. So much about our lives has changed completely. So much about ourselves.
If we can really start to view this time as this developmental phase of life where so much of who we are is changing. Recognizing that we may have unrealistic expectations of what that is going to look like—if we expect for us to be fully in our mom era by the time we go back to work or after that fourth trimester, we are going to be set up to be disappointed. Because for so many of us, we are just crawling out of the pits of newborn life after 12 weeks postpartum, or even further than that depending on how it's gone.
We really need to view this as such a big shift that lasts the first one to two years after we're having a baby. And that we are going to go through this again if we choose to have subsequent children. It's going to be its own unique experience all over again, because each baby has their own temperament. Each feeding journey is going to be so different.
Jane: Hearing you talk about matrescence like adolescence makes so much sense. I don't know why we don't talk about it. It seems really obvious now that you've said it. People talk about getting back to yourself, bouncing back—we use all that terminology. Is there a getting back and a bouncing back, or is it just something different?
Jen: This is just my opinion, but I don't really think there's such a thing as getting back to who we were before in every sense. But I don't think that that's a bad thing. I really do think that motherhood changes us in every way. Instead of trying to get back to who I was, how can we get to know this new version of ourselves? How can we meet ourselves with more compassion? How can we shift that focus to really just being present to the time and the season that we're in now?
I think that focusing on bouncing back can really also set us up for disappointment. For example, if part of this is about body image, I'm a big fan of when you're in the postpartum time, please box up all your pre-pregnancy clothes. If we can just reframe this idea of getting back to who we were, bouncing back, I think it would save us a lot of grief.
Even figuring out what makes us feel good now. Maybe prior to becoming a mom—this is true for me—I really enjoyed yoga classes. That was my thing. That might not be what I'm able to do now for my self-care, but that doesn't mean that I can't do anything. Really just figuring out what makes me feel good now, what makes me feel fulfilled. If I really enjoyed going out on date nights with my partner, but we're thick in postpartum season, how can we still make time for connection without having to find the sitter if we're not ready to do that just yet? It's really just meeting ourselves where we're at in this moment.
Practical Advice: Products and Support That Matter
Jane: That's super good advice to keep front of mind, because so much of that disappointed feeling comes with not setting yourself up appropriately for success or trying to hold on to something in the past.
Switching tacks a little bit—this podcast is brought to us by a company called the Starter Set, which is an upcoming service that is focused on helping parents find just the right things at the right time for their families. I'd love to hear from your experience as a mom of three, is there anything that you feel like was just a game changer for you and your experience that you'd recommend to other parents?
Jen: I think the best product or service that you can invest in is support. Whether it's a birth or a postpartum doula or a meal delivery service or finding your professional support team, whether that's a therapist or a chiropractor—what is it that you need? I really think these things that help us take care of ourselves in postpartum and that also can take something off our plate, especially when we are in the thick of it, those things are really just worth their weight in gold for postpartum parents.
Jane: Yeah, and it goes back to what you were saying earlier about having that postpartum support plan and thinking about that even as you're pregnant. What about things that you think that parents seem to gravitate towards that might not be as necessary?
Jen: Some of the things that I find to be tricky for new parents are things like the smart socks and the heart rate monitors and that kind of stuff. I've seen this lead to a lot of anxiety in new parents, and so I'm not here to knock it and say don't do it. But I just want people to be mindful of, what are my tendencies? What's my temperament? Do I tend to lean on the anxious side? Is this going to be something that's really helpful for me?
Then I'll hear people say—and I've got a medically complex kiddo, so it's fair – there are some situations when we want extra vigilance over certain things. I think really talking to your baby's care team about whether a certain product is going to be absolutely necessary. Having some good discernment over whether this product is going to help me, or is it going to stress me out more?
Similarly, these apps that can track all the bowel movements and the diapers and when we fed the baby and for how long on each side and how many ounces—if it's helpful – great, do it. Maybe we have multiple caregivers, and it's a helpful tool for communicating between all of the loved ones that are caring for baby. But really just taking a minute to slow down and recognize, am I putting so much into this app that it's causing us anxiety when we don't log things? Or are we getting upset at our partner because "You missed this and this is really important to me"? Just trying to slow down and figure out, is all of this data actually helpful for me or is it increasing my anxiety?
Jane: I think you mentioning that you have to think about your own temperament when you're adding some of these new layers of technology that exist to support you—the one that you said about the app and the tracking, the feeds and the poops and whatever, I was sort of smiling through that because I remember this one for me was one of those wildly different things between baby one and baby two. Baby one, I was very Type A about it. Everybody had to enter it in the app. If someone didn't enter it, I was really upset about "How are we not tracking this?" And baby two it was like, "I made people do that?"
You've experienced three kids, three different needs. What do you think is one of the most surprising things to you from child to child?
Jen: I've definitely had very wildly different experiences from pregnancy to birth to postpartum with each child. I will say for me, my first two experiences were hard in different ways. When I had my third baby—my baby is 19 months old, so it's really not all that long ago—I will say it was my most pleasant and grounded postpartum experience because I was like, "I need to practice what I preach. I need to look at my postpartum plan and really follow through with it." I had a postpartum doula lined up. I had my therapist that I was working with. I had meal trains set up. I really tried to take all of the things off my plate so that I could just be present and rest and recover and bond with my baby.
The surprising thing for me was even with all of that preparation and support in place, it was still hard. It was still an adjustment. There were still moments where I felt overwhelmed or touched out or just exhausted. But the difference was I had the supports in place, so when I was struggling, I had someone to call. I had someone to help me. I wasn't white-knuckling it through every day.
That's what I want for every postpartum parent—to have that safety net of support so that when things get hard, because they will get hard, you're not doing it alone. You have people and resources to lean on.
Jane: I love that. Thank you so much for being here and sharing all of this wisdom.
Interested to hear more or get in touch with Jen, reach out via her website motherthrivetherapy.com or follow her on Instagram @motherthrivetherapy.
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