May is Maternal Mental Health Awareness Month, a time to raise awareness about the emotional and psychological challenges that many women face during the transition to parenthood. Conditions like postpartum depression, anxiety, and other perinatal mood and anxiety disorders often go undiagnosed and untreated, affecting not only mothers but also their families and children’s development. Although…
perinatal mood and anxiety disorders
The Silent Struggle: Perinatal OCD and Intrusive Thoughts
Before giving birth to your child, you might have expected sleepless nights, dirty diapers, and emotional ups and downs. What you might not have expected were terrifying, intrusive thoughts that seemed to come out of nowhere. Some of these thoughts might look like images of accidentally dropping your baby down the stairs or of harming…
The Many Faces of Postpartum Worry
The postpartum period is often described as a time of joy and bonding, but for many new moms, it’s also a time of worry. Transition to parenthood is a significant life change, bringing emotional, hormonal, relationship, and lifestyle shifts all at once. Caring for a newborn while adjusting to your life being completely different makes…
Supporting Trauma Survivors During the Perinatal Period
The perinatal period can be challenging, and for those who have experienced trauma, it can be triggering. Survivors of trauma who are pregnant, trying to get pregnant, struggling with infertility, or have delivered children often encounter situations that remind them of previous trauma. These experiences may be traumatizing in and of themselves. Loved ones of…
A Partner’s Guide to Supporting a Successful Perinatal Journey
The transition into parenthood is a profound and transformative experience. The months leading up to bringing baby home are often filled with anticipation, joy, fear, anxiety, and more. And once you welcome that tiny, new family member into your home, those emotions only tend to magnify — understandably so. Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs)…
