As Maternal Mental Health Week wraps up, I want to encourage all of us to always be more aware, more compassionate, & more empathetic towards new moms & new dads everywhere, all the time. We don’t need a week of awareness to give us permission to check in on new moms & dads.
I encourage you to truly step in & ask how your new dad & new mom friends are feeling. They are not going to reach out to you. They are not going to tell you they need you.
Lean in & ask the new mom of a newborn how things are really going & how you can be of service. Embrace the new dad & ask him how life is treating him & how you can be there for him, truly. Skip the small talk. Get to the nitty-gritty.
Get involved. Get into their business. If we took the time to lean in just a little more, to but our noses in more often, to walk through the discomfort of talking to new & exhausted parents, we’d lessen the alarming statistics of 1 in 5 (women) & 1 in 10 (men) suffering from Postpartum Depression.
We’d discover they need us to pry & they need us to help, in one way or another. They need our attention, our care, & our empathy. Maybe we could prevent PPD from ever even happening for them by simply being in communication, being a good friend, being attentive, & caring in an ongoing way.
Pick up the phone, skip the texts. Make a phone call. If they pick up, chat for a bit & cut to the chase. Skip the surface shit & ask them how they really are. Offer up a meal drop off or offer to run an errand or two. Ask what they need from you or give them a couple of options to pick from. Skip bringing flowers, paying to get decorative balloons blown up, & spending time on being cutesy. Offer to do a load of laundry, to drop off a pizza, or to grab groceries. If they don’t answer, leave a sincere message & give them a couple of choices of things you’d be willing & able to do for them. Be a friend.
Be there, be present, & be available. When we turn away from new parents, & expect someone else to take care of them, we fail them. They need us!
Notice if they pull away. Take note if they isolate. Be aware of off feelings, odd behavior, crying spells, & open your ears to words like:
“I’m lonely”
“I feel invisible”
“I’m empty”
“I’m worthless”
“I feel like a bad mom”
Be keenly aware of the language your friends use, because if they seem off, if you get a tug at your soul that something is off, it probably is & it is up to you, & you alone, to take a stand for your friend, to speak up & to offer some help!
Postpartum Depression sufferers are men & women. Recently read that men, alongside women, can experience hormonal imbalances as well, post delivery. What that means is men absolutely positively can experience perinatal disorders as well. You won’t be warned by your OBGYN about that! They don’t talk much about that at your pregnancy check ups! We need to change the way we talk about perinatal disorders so people are more aware of what they are and can detect them early on.
New parents are not sleeping. Sleep deprivation can cause issues with mood. When baby comes, often our partners get way less attention from mom, which is understandable, but that lack of attention has a major impact.
1 in 10 men will suffer from PPD this year. They feel disconnected from, pulled away from, & as if their feelings do not matter due to our busy-ness as new mothers. Their feelings matter. Ask them how they are feeling.
It’s not our faults, but be aware, new moms, as our loved ones need us to see them, to love them, & to make them feel needed. Our spouses need to feel our touch, too. They need to be made relevant, cared for, & attracted to. Make the time to remind your person that you love them. Tell them why they matter.
I know all this because I was a negligent wife to my husband, post Hope & post James. I got very wrapped up, caught up, super-duper focused on new motherhood. My husband faded into the background, like the furniture in our home.
I forgot to tell him he mattered, that he was the very reason I was able to continue, that there was no way in hell I would have survived PPD without him. There was no way in hell I could have taken on this new role of stay-at-home-mom-hood sans him. He was the very stable force that kept my feet on the ground & reminded me I mattered.
Pay attention to the people in your life. Turn towards them, not away from them. If they seem off, get help, ASAP.
PPD has a lot of stigma around. It’s a huge problem. We must take better care of our moms & dads, as a community. PPD affects our sisters, our brothers, our aunts, our uncles, our cousins, our neighbors, our church members, the most put together of people, & more. Many are ashamed to admit they have feelings of worthlessness, loneliness, emptiness, sadness, weariness, & darkness. Many do not want to say they lack the unicorn euphoria, rainbow-like feelings, & candy- like colorful joy displayed on T.V. or other media sources. They feel shame & assume that if they are experiencing such feelings, there must be something wrong with them, but there is nothing wrong with them.
PPD is real & it is not a choice, but rather a mixed bag of emotional twists & turns that make it difficult to get through each & every day in a comfortable way. It’s like trying to make your way through the dark without a flashlight. It’s awful. It’s terrifying. It’s debilitating.
There is help.
Please reach out & reach in to those around you with new babies. Pick up the phone & check on mom & dad. Ask them both how they are feeling. Lean in. Reach in. Get in their bubble. It could be the difference between life and death.
Postpartum Depression Resources:
just another mama next door 
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