First I will explain what Postpartum anxiety is. It is something that happens between 10-15% of women after having a baby. The anxiety can also occur during pregnancy (antepartum) for about 6% of women.
Postpartum anxiety consists of these symptoms
• Constant worry
• Feeling that something bad is going to happen
• Racing thoughts
• Disturbances of sleep and appetite
• Inability to sit still
• Physical symptoms like dizziness, hot flashes, and nausea
Another Postpartum issue that can occur is Postpartum panic disorder.
"This is a form of anxiety with which the sufferer feels very nervous and has recurring panic attacks. During a panic attack, she may experience shortness of breath, chest pain, claustrophobia, dizziness, heart palpitations, and numbness and tingling in the extremities. Panic attacks seem to go in waves, but it is important to know that they will pass and will not hurt you. "
After I had my sweet baby I had a nice healthy mix of both of these postpartum issues...fun, huh? But the thing is we ALL go through something after having a baby. Sometimes it's a colicky baby, a baby in the NICU, dangerous deliveries, baby blues, not being financially ready, some depression, etc... It's all not fun, but it's all ok and it happens to alot of us! In fact some form of baby blues occurs for most of us... I think the stats are 80%?!
In fact I read that the number one complication of childbirth is postpartum depression! For some reason I was surprised by that fact.
Ok, so on to my story. At 34 weeks during my pregnancy with Boss (4 weeks before he was born) I started feeling EXTREME claustrophobia. It was all the time, everywhere, and never let up. It was awful at first, but then it became manageable...however still sucky to deal with. I went into labor feeling WAY claustrophobic so the whole experience was really difficult for me. After I had Boss I wanted to RUN from the hospital. I felt so claustrophobic in there, so Dane and I went home about 20 hours after having Bosty. For the first few days home I felt pretty normal baby blues (crying at the drop of a hat, not sure why). But our first night home, I had my first panic attack. It was awful. I literally thought I was going insane, I felt trapped inside my own head. Short of breath, VERY dizzy and numbness in my jaw and my heart felt like it was pounding out of my head and chest. These symptoms lasted for days and panic attacks came in and out all the while. It felt like it NEVER let up. I also was TERRIFIED that I would lose Dane and Boss somehow. I thought I had serious medical conditions (for example I was terrified I was going blind and possibly insane). I had no crazy thoughts. I had full eye sight. Yet somehow I was TERRIFIED. I was dizzy all the time and could not sit and watch a movie or read a book, because being still felt like the worse thing I could do. I couldn't sleep a wink my first many days home. As tired and worn out as I was I COULD NOT SLEEP to save my life. My heart would pound in my chest and in my head and I would lye in bed shaking, crying and praying that I would fall asleep. Then my doctor gave me some ambien and that SAVED me. I FINALLY could get my first chunk of sleep and the ambien had NO adverse affects on me whatsoever. It didn't leave me feeling medicine heady at all, but taking the ambien meant I had to skip a feeding with Bosty, because the medicine stays in you for 6 hours. I was worried this would screw up breastfeeding, but I was desperate. The great thing is, this didn't mess with our breastfeeding at all and I only had to take the ambien for a week or two.
Dane and I rushed to our doctor the next day looking like total wrecks (Oh, the poor pregnant women in the office that day...they were probably scarred by the sight of us). We were at the front desk begging for anxiety medication! (haha...somehow it's a little funny now). So I started taking medicine but after a couple days I didn't feel at all good about it, and decided that for me I needed to try and figure this thing out.
So all of this crazy postpartum anxiety and panic continued for a few months at varying degrees of intensity. (in fact I am just barely feeling that I am pretty much over it...with the exception of a little bit of anxiety sometimes at night and the fear that it will come back...yuck!)
The good thing is each of these symptoms let up one by one and they have NEVER been as intense as those first few days home. They have only gotten better and better to the point that I have gone over a week with not a drop of anxiety and the anxiety that has returned has been very minor, and VERY manageable. At about 2 weeks out, the anxiety let up from being constant. At 4 weeks I felt a HUGE jump in progress and thereafter slowly but surely, symptoms began to fade more and more up until around 3 months the anxiety was pretty much non-existent.
I wanted everything to leave as quickly as it came on and that has not been the case, which is unfortunate. However, everything I have read says that PPD, PPA and PPPD all are temporary conditions and you can recover...FULLY! Ya! :) But, the downside is you do have to WORK at it, especially if you want to make the time you are going through it manageable. I read a bunch of stuff online of women going through exactly what I was going through, and many women had it MUCH worse than me. The blessing in my case is that I was never incapacitated by it all.
So I was really struggling to figure out what was wrong with me because I didn't have the symptoms of postpartum depression and I had never heard of PPA. I know it may sound weird but I was extremely happy (outside of my anxiety) during this whole time. In fact being with my baby almost made all of my symptoms go away. So I was not able to understand what was happening to me...except for the option that I must be going crazy, because there was no explanation for what I was feeling and I hadn't heard anyone going through what I was. Once I started looking at all of this stuff online I read posts from hundreds of women with PPA describing exactly what i was going through, saying things like "i don't understand, i feel really happy. I'm not depressed but something is seriously wrong". It has been a relief for me to discover that what i have dealt with is temporary and I will fully recover. For me I kept describing my feelings as anxious and not depressed, which made me very unsure of what I was dealing with. At first I didn't want to have any sort of label. I didn't want to hear that there was a name or a "disorder" for what I was experiencing because that made me feel bad about myself, but now I find comfort in the fact that there are hundreds of women that have gone through what I have gone through and the name really means nothing. You can find a name for EVERYTHING. In fact my Mom was telling me that when she was having babies one of her friends told her that she was going through "depression" and my mom had NEVER heard someone use the term like that. It was a new way to describe feeling like crap. So basically a label is no big deal and it actually is helpful so that you can get more information on how to deal.
I went online to find information, wondering if this sort of condition occurs with every pregnancy and (like with most things in pregnancy) every woman had a different story. Some struggled with postpartum issues on child # 1 and #3 but were great with #2. Some women struggled with postpartum issues with every baby and sometimes worse with each one. Some women said they struggled with their first and not at all with subsequent children. So I guess it's just a toss up... which is kind of encouraging.
Having a baby is just plain hard in general and with the combo of your life getting flipped upside down, being sleep tortured and having a flood of hormones and emotions overcoming you, it is hard to recognize what you are dealing with. The website that I found just the other day that made things so clear for me is called postpartum.net and it was not a scary, gloom and doom sort of website either. Everything I found on it was very comforting.
Here is a list of things that I did that REALLY helped me get through the toughest times of this whole anxiety business.
1. I talked about it. Not to everyone, but to the people close around me. I talked and talked and that really helped. I leaned on my husband for support. He held me many nights while I cried, feeling worried that I would never be ok. And for the times I wanted to talk in circles about my issues (sometimes us women just need to do that) I called a sister or my mom and that got me by from moment to moment, day to day.
2. I prayed my brains out! I spent countless hours praying and reminding myself that the Lord was looking out for me and was not going to let me go through something that would break me.
3. I read this really awesome book called "Feeling Good". I worked every day on the exercises in this book and it took time (which is annoying) but it REALLY helped. In fact reading this book and doing these exercises was one of my big turning points.
4. I kept my blessings at the forefront of my mind. I constantly reminded myself of all the things I was blessed with.
5. I told myself and listened to others telling me that I was doing a good job.
6. I loved on my husband and baby lots. I didn't stop taking pictures, or going on walks, or at least attempting to do some of the things I loved. I understand that for lots of women their anxiety or depression or whatever they are dealing with can be so extreme that they can't do much of anything...and that is ok too, but whatever I felt like I could do, I did do, because it made me feel better.
So, I hope that this post might help someone out there. I wish people would talk more about what they go through because I think we would find that more of us struggled than we realized and just knowing that others have struggled in similar or even different ways, and then got through it is nice to know.
The one thing I never tried (but wish I did) go to some sort of counseling. I think it would have been very therapeutic for me and everything online said that these postpartum issues are temporary and will go away with PROFESSIONAL help. So I think I might have gotten through things quicker If I had sought out counseling. However from the website, Postpartum.net I found a little hot line that you can call and talk with a doctor that deals specifically with postpartum issues and the conversation will include up to 15 other callers and the call lasts for an hour. I have no idea what it will be like, (I think I might feel like I'm in AA or something, haha) but I am gonna give it a try, just so I can understand what I went through better...and hopefully learn some ways to prevent this anxiety from creeping back up in my life. I will do a follow up post and let you all know what I learn!
I will also definitely see a counselor before my next pregnancy so that I can get some tools under my belt to help me deal with the these issues in case they occur again.
I hope this helped someone! Feel free to pass it along to anyone you think this might help...my blog is open. :)
• Feeling that something bad is going to happen
• Racing thoughts
• Disturbances of sleep and appetite
• Inability to sit still
• Physical symptoms like dizziness, hot flashes, and nausea
Another Postpartum issue that can occur is Postpartum panic disorder.
"This is a form of anxiety with which the sufferer feels very nervous and has recurring panic attacks. During a panic attack, she may experience shortness of breath, chest pain, claustrophobia, dizziness, heart palpitations, and numbness and tingling in the extremities. Panic attacks seem to go in waves, but it is important to know that they will pass and will not hurt you. "
After I had my sweet baby I had a nice healthy mix of both of these postpartum issues...fun, huh? But the thing is we ALL go through something after having a baby. Sometimes it's a colicky baby, a baby in the NICU, dangerous deliveries, baby blues, not being financially ready, some depression, etc... It's all not fun, but it's all ok and it happens to alot of us! In fact some form of baby blues occurs for most of us... I think the stats are 80%?!
In fact I read that the number one complication of childbirth is postpartum depression! For some reason I was surprised by that fact.
Ok, so on to my story. At 34 weeks during my pregnancy with Boss (4 weeks before he was born) I started feeling EXTREME claustrophobia. It was all the time, everywhere, and never let up. It was awful at first, but then it became manageable...however still sucky to deal with. I went into labor feeling WAY claustrophobic so the whole experience was really difficult for me. After I had Boss I wanted to RUN from the hospital. I felt so claustrophobic in there, so Dane and I went home about 20 hours after having Bosty. For the first few days home I felt pretty normal baby blues (crying at the drop of a hat, not sure why). But our first night home, I had my first panic attack. It was awful. I literally thought I was going insane, I felt trapped inside my own head. Short of breath, VERY dizzy and numbness in my jaw and my heart felt like it was pounding out of my head and chest. These symptoms lasted for days and panic attacks came in and out all the while. It felt like it NEVER let up. I also was TERRIFIED that I would lose Dane and Boss somehow. I thought I had serious medical conditions (for example I was terrified I was going blind and possibly insane). I had no crazy thoughts. I had full eye sight. Yet somehow I was TERRIFIED. I was dizzy all the time and could not sit and watch a movie or read a book, because being still felt like the worse thing I could do. I couldn't sleep a wink my first many days home. As tired and worn out as I was I COULD NOT SLEEP to save my life. My heart would pound in my chest and in my head and I would lye in bed shaking, crying and praying that I would fall asleep. Then my doctor gave me some ambien and that SAVED me. I FINALLY could get my first chunk of sleep and the ambien had NO adverse affects on me whatsoever. It didn't leave me feeling medicine heady at all, but taking the ambien meant I had to skip a feeding with Bosty, because the medicine stays in you for 6 hours. I was worried this would screw up breastfeeding, but I was desperate. The great thing is, this didn't mess with our breastfeeding at all and I only had to take the ambien for a week or two.
Dane and I rushed to our doctor the next day looking like total wrecks (Oh, the poor pregnant women in the office that day...they were probably scarred by the sight of us). We were at the front desk begging for anxiety medication! (haha...somehow it's a little funny now). So I started taking medicine but after a couple days I didn't feel at all good about it, and decided that for me I needed to try and figure this thing out.
So all of this crazy postpartum anxiety and panic continued for a few months at varying degrees of intensity. (in fact I am just barely feeling that I am pretty much over it...with the exception of a little bit of anxiety sometimes at night and the fear that it will come back...yuck!)
The good thing is each of these symptoms let up one by one and they have NEVER been as intense as those first few days home. They have only gotten better and better to the point that I have gone over a week with not a drop of anxiety and the anxiety that has returned has been very minor, and VERY manageable. At about 2 weeks out, the anxiety let up from being constant. At 4 weeks I felt a HUGE jump in progress and thereafter slowly but surely, symptoms began to fade more and more up until around 3 months the anxiety was pretty much non-existent.
I wanted everything to leave as quickly as it came on and that has not been the case, which is unfortunate. However, everything I have read says that PPD, PPA and PPPD all are temporary conditions and you can recover...FULLY! Ya! :) But, the downside is you do have to WORK at it, especially if you want to make the time you are going through it manageable. I read a bunch of stuff online of women going through exactly what I was going through, and many women had it MUCH worse than me. The blessing in my case is that I was never incapacitated by it all.
So I was really struggling to figure out what was wrong with me because I didn't have the symptoms of postpartum depression and I had never heard of PPA. I know it may sound weird but I was extremely happy (outside of my anxiety) during this whole time. In fact being with my baby almost made all of my symptoms go away. So I was not able to understand what was happening to me...except for the option that I must be going crazy, because there was no explanation for what I was feeling and I hadn't heard anyone going through what I was. Once I started looking at all of this stuff online I read posts from hundreds of women with PPA describing exactly what i was going through, saying things like "i don't understand, i feel really happy. I'm not depressed but something is seriously wrong". It has been a relief for me to discover that what i have dealt with is temporary and I will fully recover. For me I kept describing my feelings as anxious and not depressed, which made me very unsure of what I was dealing with. At first I didn't want to have any sort of label. I didn't want to hear that there was a name or a "disorder" for what I was experiencing because that made me feel bad about myself, but now I find comfort in the fact that there are hundreds of women that have gone through what I have gone through and the name really means nothing. You can find a name for EVERYTHING. In fact my Mom was telling me that when she was having babies one of her friends told her that she was going through "depression" and my mom had NEVER heard someone use the term like that. It was a new way to describe feeling like crap. So basically a label is no big deal and it actually is helpful so that you can get more information on how to deal.
I went online to find information, wondering if this sort of condition occurs with every pregnancy and (like with most things in pregnancy) every woman had a different story. Some struggled with postpartum issues on child # 1 and #3 but were great with #2. Some women struggled with postpartum issues with every baby and sometimes worse with each one. Some women said they struggled with their first and not at all with subsequent children. So I guess it's just a toss up... which is kind of encouraging.
Having a baby is just plain hard in general and with the combo of your life getting flipped upside down, being sleep tortured and having a flood of hormones and emotions overcoming you, it is hard to recognize what you are dealing with. The website that I found just the other day that made things so clear for me is called postpartum.net and it was not a scary, gloom and doom sort of website either. Everything I found on it was very comforting.
Here is a list of things that I did that REALLY helped me get through the toughest times of this whole anxiety business.
1. I talked about it. Not to everyone, but to the people close around me. I talked and talked and that really helped. I leaned on my husband for support. He held me many nights while I cried, feeling worried that I would never be ok. And for the times I wanted to talk in circles about my issues (sometimes us women just need to do that) I called a sister or my mom and that got me by from moment to moment, day to day.
2. I prayed my brains out! I spent countless hours praying and reminding myself that the Lord was looking out for me and was not going to let me go through something that would break me.
3. I read this really awesome book called "Feeling Good". I worked every day on the exercises in this book and it took time (which is annoying) but it REALLY helped. In fact reading this book and doing these exercises was one of my big turning points.
4. I kept my blessings at the forefront of my mind. I constantly reminded myself of all the things I was blessed with.
5. I told myself and listened to others telling me that I was doing a good job.
6. I loved on my husband and baby lots. I didn't stop taking pictures, or going on walks, or at least attempting to do some of the things I loved. I understand that for lots of women their anxiety or depression or whatever they are dealing with can be so extreme that they can't do much of anything...and that is ok too, but whatever I felt like I could do, I did do, because it made me feel better.
So, I hope that this post might help someone out there. I wish people would talk more about what they go through because I think we would find that more of us struggled than we realized and just knowing that others have struggled in similar or even different ways, and then got through it is nice to know.
The one thing I never tried (but wish I did) go to some sort of counseling. I think it would have been very therapeutic for me and everything online said that these postpartum issues are temporary and will go away with PROFESSIONAL help. So I think I might have gotten through things quicker If I had sought out counseling. However from the website, Postpartum.net I found a little hot line that you can call and talk with a doctor that deals specifically with postpartum issues and the conversation will include up to 15 other callers and the call lasts for an hour. I have no idea what it will be like, (I think I might feel like I'm in AA or something, haha) but I am gonna give it a try, just so I can understand what I went through better...and hopefully learn some ways to prevent this anxiety from creeping back up in my life. I will do a follow up post and let you all know what I learn!
I will also definitely see a counselor before my next pregnancy so that I can get some tools under my belt to help me deal with the these issues in case they occur again.
I hope this helped someone! Feel free to pass it along to anyone you think this might help...my blog is open. :)
2 comments:
Great post Jill! I've heard that this is a pretty common thing. I'm sure your story will help others. :)
i totally agree that talking about being postpartum anything really helps, its nice to know that you're not going crazy and everyone feels the same way or similar!
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