The Most Asked Questions About Postpartum Anxiety

Speaker 1: 0:10

Hey guys, welcome back to PreviewLiance podcast. This is Sarah, whitney and Whitney, you did so awesome on our most asked questions about post-partum depression and got really good feedback. So now you're ready for post-partum anxiety. Oh yes.

Speaker 1: 0:29

Let's get a little personal, as we both experienced this, let's dive in, okay. So for our listeners who are catching up with us, we did we did a whole series last May so May 2023 of what is post-partum depression and anxiety during pregnancy. You name it. If it's under the perinatal mood anxiety disorder umbrella, we talked about it. So if we're new to you, you're new to us. Please go back to that and listen to those. There'll be some good baseline information that kind of goes further, but today's is going to be based on questions asked by PreviewLiancecom and the most googled questions about post-partum anxiety. These are what people want to know. Whitney, let's do it. What causes post-partum anxiety?

Speaker 2: 1:18

Okay, so very similar to post-partum depression. If you already have a pre-existing history of depression, anxiety, ocd, adhd, ptsd, ocd, bipolar disorder, anything like that, you are higher risk. Now let's just say you've never been diagnosed with anything, but your parents have grandparents have you've got a sibling, things like that.

Speaker 2: 1:44

then you have the DNA or the genetics that make you higher risk for it. So just keep in mind like you could have sailed through life and you managed your situational anxieties, like a test or applying to college or different things like that, or a big meeting you had at work and you're like, oh, I feel a little nervous about this. You moved through those situational anxieties, but it's nothing that was consistent, if we know. Sitting down to take my ACT, my heart was racing, but we know why. So I'm talking about like a consistent, non-situational thing where we know, okay, the ACT may be anxious, so DNA and genetics that plays a huge role in just the likelihood or the susceptibility for experiencing post-partum anxiety.

Speaker 1: 2:34

You know, mine, I think, my high risk pregnancy. I was so anxious during pregnancy I was saying mm-hmm. You know it just carried, and I think medical professionals, you know you can even say teachers in the sense of like, I think, if you've seen a lot of bad outcomes, even personally, if you've known some really hard stories from friends and family, you know I always say the bliss bubble is popped and I think that is really hard to kind of not see what's maybe happened to them, happening to you and your baby.

Speaker 2: 3:06

Oh yeah, absolutely. That resonates with me because when I was pregnant with my second one you know that was when COVID hit all the things it was the week of my anatomy scan. So I was 19 weeks, I kid you not. We had four IUFDs and for those that don't know what that means, that's an intrauterine fetal demise or death of the baby. We had four of them, all of them, I kid you not. We were all between 18 to 20 weeks. They were pregnant with girls. They had no risk factor histories. So during my pregnancy I was like I'm sorry, what? Now You're telling me like mm, mm. Yeah, super anxious, super anxious during that time Miscarriage.

Speaker 1: 3:50

You know I have a history of miscarriage and pregnancy after miscarriage we've talked about we have an episode on that but it is very anxiety inducing. I mean to the point. For me it was going to the restroom every time and fearing Blood, blood. It was very anxiety inducing. So if any of those kind of things resonate with you, just be aware that is something that I would start talking to your OB provider about. Therapy highly, highly recommend getting into a great therapist To kind of just be aware, educate yourself, take those steps. Okay, this is a good one to bridge in now. Can you have anxiety during pregnancy?

Speaker 2: 4:29

Absolutely, yes, Absolutely Not an issue. Absolutely you can you absolutely can.

Speaker 1: 4:36

Where do you? Where is that line Right? Because I think everybody's like well, of course it's hard, right, you get brushed off. Oh yeah, you're worried about being a new mom. It's a life change. Where is that tipping point? Where, like, it's consuming her? What do you see where you're like, ooh, okay.

Speaker 2: 4:51

It's when and it would almost look like adult onset ADHD. Okay, so you're so anxious about something happening that you don't feel like you can focus and it's a new thing. So if you already have ADHD and you feel like that's been a struggle before, anxiety plays a role in ADHD. But let's just say you've never had a diagnosis of ADHD, you're not really easily distracted, things like that. But all of a sudden you find yourself oh my gosh, what if I get that call today? What if this happens? What if that happens? And you're sitting in front of your work computer and you've read one email and you've got 50 to go, kind of thing, and that anxiety pulls you away from being able to function in complete daily tasks, that would definitely be something to look out for.

Speaker 2: 5:37

When you're consistently having heart palpitations, shortness of breath lightheadedness can be another symptom of that you feel shaky and, honestly, here's a huge thing. This is where mind and body are so connected. You have stomach problems. You feel like you have this pit in your stomach all the time. You have an upset stomach all the time and, yes, impregnancy heartburn absolutely occurs. So let's just say you're not third trimester when the heartburn really kicks in. Let's just say you're 15 weeks, so baby's not going to be super, super huge and pushing on your stomach just yet. But I mean you can't get rid of that burning feeling in your stomach. That would be anxiety. If you have this overthinking, you're overthinking a scenario in your head to try and get a resolution to it.

Speaker 1: 6:26

I've heard the anxiety of eminence and a car crash. So then you don't leave or you say I've got to work from home now versus going into the office because of again that driving. Or you stop eating certain things because you're so convinced that something's going to happen. So again, it's at what we just point out. It's when it's impactful of your life and probably when other people are starting to notice it as well. You can hide it very well, but you may hear some people saying okay, this is a little different from you. I know. For me, I needed frequent reassurance of a heartbeat. So it goes back to a previous loss or convince. Something's always wrong. Right, that was kind of some signs, but absolutely that's inevitable.

Speaker 2: 7:07

The inevitable is something bad occurs.

Speaker 1: 7:10

And then you can't shake it, you can't logically get yourself to think out of that. Now that goes to is it real? Post-bond anxiety? Real, 100%, it's real. And again, like we said in our previous, episode the fact that people are Googling this is they're looking for validation, because probably they're not getting to other places right or they're being dismissed in other areas Dismissed.

Speaker 2: 7:34

For every family, significant other, doctors, friends, the dismissiveness is there 100%, which is sad.

Speaker 1: 7:41

but this is why, again, our platform is here to provide education. It's very common. How common do you think anxiety is?

Speaker 2: 7:48

Whitney Just as a whole or postpartum. Let's talk about postpartum.

Speaker 1: 7:54

Okay.

Speaker 2: 7:55

If I'm gonna separate it out from postpartum depression. Honestly, post COVID, I think we've seen more of the anxieties and kind of OCD pop out from COVID. Honestly, I feel like it's 85 to 90% of mom's experience postpartum anxiety in some capacity. It may not be something that lasts very long, it may not be something that they choose to treat with medication, but that doesn't mean it's not there.

Speaker 1: 8:22

Yeah, and it continues, right, because this is another question. How long does it last? And you know, I think my carried on way longer than it ever should, right?

Speaker 2: 8:33

I mean that's a hard question Because everybody is so different. Yeah, it's to that. So as far as how long it lasts, I would say that varies. Now, when we look at postpartum anxiety versus baby blues, now baby blues just kind of self-resolve within about two to three weeks, right. But postpartum anxiety is not gonna self-resolve, no. Now, that being said, you can choose medication to treat it, you can choose therapy to treat it, you can do CBT exercises to treat it, things like that. But you do have to address anxiety for it to actually get better and for it to be manageable. So with that, I really don't wanna give a definitive timeline of okay, well, you're your postpartum poof, it's gone, it may not be, it may not be. At that point I think medically, technically, it just goes more over to like generalized anxiety disorder as opposed to postpartum. So like if we're looking at like from a doctor's perspective or the DSM, technically the diagnosis would change from postpartum anxiety to a GAD or adjustment disorder with anxiety. But that doesn't mean it still didn't get rooted in postpartum.

Speaker 1: 9:51

And I know mine and we've mentioned this before in you is our anxiety was about sleep. That was huge for us about if we couldn't sleep because we were convinced that our children would die in their sleep. Since it was a huge anxiety point to us. Other parents may experience anxiety over the car. Go back and drive me in the car or won't let anyone else watch their child Choking, starting solid stuff like that may start triggering anxiety and again it's like one of those things that if you have had experience where child was in NICU like every time we all got sick in this first year in life I had really bad anxiety flare ups.

Speaker 2: 10:29

Yeah, absolutely Well, because look at what you've survived. Yeah, you've survived a worst case scenario, so why wouldn't your brain use that trauma trigger to go back there?

Speaker 1: 10:41

Right, I feel like these questions like they're wanting concrete answers and when we're talking about our mental health and we're talking about postpartum, we're talking about all the factors that come in as our moms, because I mean, your kid could be older and get very sick, get hospitalized, and like that anxiety is a new anxiety that's coming into play, right, but like it can carry on every time they get sick again or they could go through something. So I think, being a mom and again, you know, keeping these little beings alive, right, it's anxiety-inducing, right, like we don't need much help to really go there.

Speaker 2: 11:13

No, we don't, we can do it on our own. Uh-huh, we absolutely can do it on our own.

Speaker 1: 11:19

Which, again, big fan of therapy the coping techniques that you can learn and how to recognize anxiety and do that can be taught to you through therapy and get to the root of why you're feeling this way. So another question is how do you treat it? We've mentioned it medication but definitely, like Whitney said, an awesome therapist like herself. Okay, if I've had it before, will I have it again?

Speaker 2: 11:42

It's not an absolute, and we mentioned this in the postpartum depression episode. Think about this you go and you drive a car and you're in a car accident. The next day you get back in a car. You're not absolutely guaranteed to be in a car accident again. You have a 50-50 shot of that happening. Same thing with postpartum anxiety. Just because you experience it the first time, second time, third time, whatever, does not mean that you're going to experience it up to the hundredth time, right, so you are higher likelihood of it. But it's not an absolute, it's not a guarantee. As best you can, try to not get into that trap of thinking oh my gosh, it happened before, it is going to happen again. That's going to create that anxiety on its own. That honestly feels like an intrusive thought where it's like oh, I'm going to have postpartum anxiety again. How am I going to survive that?

Speaker 1: 12:38

If we're listeners who've never heard the term intrusive thought, what is an intrusive thought?

Speaker 2: 12:44

And intrusive thought is rooted in anxiety and it does come from a place of pretation where it's like hey morning, make sure you look out for this. But then your anxiety takes that thought of be aware and runs with it like a kid's imagination. So a great example of that and we've used this in the podcast before you know, let's just say, you're walking down the stairs with your baby and on something you think, oh my God, what if I fall down the stairs with my baby? What if they end up in the ICU? What if I end up in the ICU? What if we both end up dying because we get traumatic brain injuries from this? And all of a sudden you have snowballed. You've gone from point A to point Z very, very quickly and it is worst case scenario thinking. Next thing, you know you're rapid breathing, rapid heartbeat, sweating, just panicked about this scenario. That hasn't happened, so that would be an intrusive thought.

Speaker 1: 13:36

And intrusive thoughts are very common. So you know we have a whole episode called Good Moms have Scary Thoughts and we delve into more about this. But intrusive thoughts can come to like again, like Whitney said, protection, like you don't want X to happen to your baby. So sometimes that thought of X happening to your baby comes in your mind as like your way of being, like oh my gosh, I would never want that to happen. And it does not mean that with intrusive thoughts researchers show that if you have this thought that you're going to act upon that thought is completely different than when we talk about psychoses, where you believe those thoughts and you think they're good thoughts. You know these are not good thoughts.

Speaker 2: 14:15

Right, you're scared of the thoughts. You're scared of your own thoughts and your own thinking Because, like who wants to fall down the stairs with their baby, Right, probably your baby, nobody.

Speaker 2: 14:25

But then you're thinking, oh my gosh, what if I lose complete control, which, having no control over situation, naturally, you know, makes anxiety go up. So it's one of those in those moments. Okay, I'm really scared. I'm going to fall down the stairs with my baby. Maybe I'm just going to sit down and scoot down the stairs, maybe I'm going to make sure I'm holding my baby tighter and I'll hold the rail and I'll just take it slower. You know, taking back that control, yeah, saying I can control this aspect of it.

Speaker 1: 14:51

Yeah, and anxiety. I think again, we've mentioned this before in previous episodes, but anxiety, again, is really tied to our desire, I believe, from birth is to protect this child and to care for this child, and no one talks about it. I think people brush it off. But that's a lot to carry, that's a lot to assume, and, especially in this day and age, it's a scary world and we're mothering in a world where it's a very scary world to live in, and so it's anxiety. I think, like you said, it's very high. We'll do something a little different to end this. What is some of your favorite anxiety toolbox tips here that you like to personally do or teach your clients?

Speaker 2: 15:32

I mentioned it just a second ago. But, using the grounding thoughts, making myself take that deep breath, even if I don't think I can take a deep breath, I'm going to say, okay, just breathe in through your nose and breathe in through your mouth, because that physically forces you to take a deeper breath. Yeah, so we're working with how our body works. Okay, I'm really scared that I'm going to fall down the stairs with the baby. Maybe let me just step back for a minute, take my time, you know, sit down and scoot on my bottom, using the grounding thought of. Okay, that hasn't happened yet, this is within my control to take a little bit longer to get downstairs, to sit down and scoot downstairs or hold the rail.

Speaker 2: 16:13

Another really good one is what we call tactile grounding. I use this a fair amount with clients and just on my own. So what tactile grounding is is we're tapping into your senses. Really, I love doing like sense of smell, sense of taste in your sense of touch. So with touch, I want you to get something cold or wet. It can be a paper towel, water bottle, coke, can something out of the fridge or the freezer, or you're just going to the bathroom and getting water. Ideally, I would want you to put it on your pulse point, that's on your neck. Let's just say you're at Target, though, or Publix or wherever, and you're like. I don't want to call that kind of attention to myself.

Speaker 2: 16:55

Put it on the back of your neck, Putting it on the back of your neck. It distracts your brain from those intrusive thoughts because your brain thinking, oh, that's cold or oh, that's wet. So we're tapping into a sense, we're breaking that thought pattern. And while you're doing that, just take some deep breaths, Look around at your surroundings. Are you physically safe? Are you physically safe? Is there an imminent threat for your physical safety, for your baby's physical safety? If the answer is no, you can say, okay, this is anxiety, it doesn't feel good, it feels scary, but it's not gonna hurt me.

Speaker 2: 17:34

Same thing when we talk about the sense of smell. Get hand sanitizer which also, by the way, can help if you feel nauseated from your anxiety, just because rubbing alcohol does that. So I'm a big fan of using sanitizer. But lotion is another good one. A candle, anything that's scented.

Speaker 2: 17:50

Taking in some deep breaths and saying, okay, what does this smell like to me? Is it a sweet smell? Is it a clean smell? Is it a coffee scented candle Like? Is it a fruity lotion? What all do we have going on here? And you are asking yourself surface level questions. But that's okay, we're just trying to break the thought pattern of intrusive thoughts. Now, when it comes to your sense of taste. Gum, mint, sour candy is really my favorite one to encourage people today. But sometimes we just use what we have and you're sucking on that. Think about our babies. They suck on their thumb, they suck on their passes. That is a human's natural way of self-soothing. So we're utilizing again, we're working with our body, kind of what our DNA tells us to do to soothe ourselves anyway. But especially if you're using sour, it's going to be a little bit of a shock to your central nervous system.

Speaker 1: 18:46

I carry those sour candies Ever since you taught me that it's like a little pack of says yeah, and I just pop them and I it works. I mean people, they might be hearing that going. Really, no, try it. Give us feedback, let us know, but it works.

Speaker 2: 19:00

Warheads, lemonheads, jolting ranchers are great Ring pops. Get your kids in on it, because they're not going to turn down a ring pop. No one turns out a ring pop.

Speaker 1: 19:09

Mints, mints, tic-tacs any of that stuff is good. I love that and those are some really great techniques, such for your pregnant, your postpartum, if you're wanting to be a mom, just listen to us, go ahead and getting yourself these tools. It's only going to help you in life. And again, if this resonates to anybody, we just want you to start having conversations with your doctor, with your friends, your family, and take a step forward. You don't have to live in, you know, constant stage of anxiety or feel hopeless or it's a youth thing. It's very common and again, we say all the time, the most common complication of childbirth and pregnancy is these perinatal mood anxiety disorders. So you are not alone in this. But, as always, guys, we appreciate you spending time with us. We'll be back next week and until next time, all right, see you, guys.

Speaker 3: 20:02

Returnal. Mental health is as important as physical health. The Previous Alliance podcast was created for and by moms dealing with postpartum depression into all its variables, like anxiety, anger and even apathy. Hosted by CEO founder Sarah Parkhurst and licensed clinical social worker Whitney Gay, each episode focuses on specific issues relevant to pregnancy and postpartum. Join us and hear how other moms have overcome mental health challenges, as well as access tips and suggestions on dealing with your own challenges as moms. You can also browse our podcast library and listen to previous episodes at any time. Please know you're not alone on this journey. We're here to help.