Pregnancy & postpartum

Baby blues affects 60-80% of new moms and is a very common experience across all walks of life. Hormone fluctuations following birth, adjustment to baby, and sleep deprivation work together to create a rollercoaster of emotions, frequent tearfulness, and overall exhaustion. Baby blues typically remediate on their own as hormones regulate. However, if you have been experiencing any of these symptoms for over two weeks following the birth of your baby or your symptoms feel like too much to handle, together we can figure out what’s going on. We will complete a thorough assessment and collaborate on strategies to move forward and get you feeling your best and most empowered as a parent and person.

One in 5 mothers experience depression sometime during their first year postpartum. For a third of these women, depressive symptoms begin to appear during pregnancy. Further, there is a common misconception that postpartum depression only affects women. In reality, postpartum depression also affects partners and 1 in 10 fathers and supporting partners experience postpartum depression themselves. If you are feeling low on most days, have lasting fatigue, are constantly overwhelmed, don’t feel connected to your baby, don’t feel able to cope with it all, and just don’t feel like yourself or how you imagined life with a baby would be, you may be experiencing postpartum depression. Let’s work together to determine if you are experiencing postpartum depression. We will collaborate on a plan individualized to you and your life that will help you start feeling like yourself again so you can feel good in your headspace and find gratification in parenthood.

As many as 20% of new parents experience anxiety during pregnancy and postpartum. Anxiety can look different for everyone. Sometimes it may feel like all you do is worry about your baby’s health and safety to the point that it robs you of everyday joys. Other times, you may feel angry and irritable towards others, including your partner. You may even be experiencing panicky feelings like racing heart and difficulty breathing. Often, these anxiety symptoms come with poor sleep, and that building exhaustion only makes all the other feelings worse. Let’s work together to help you manage all the feelings that are unique to you in an individualized way that makes sense for you and your life. As we collaborate, we will help you get back to feeling like yourself and finding joy in a life you love.

Without warning, our bodies can sometimes go into fight or flight mode. Feelings of intense fear, heart palpitations, sweating, trembling, shortness of breath, dizziness, chest pain, and gastrointestinal distress can come on suddenly and make you wonder if you are having a heart attack. You might feel a terrifying loss of control and fear of future panic attacks. If you have experienced symptoms of a panic attack, we will collaboratively work on grounding practices and tailor a cognitive-behavioral intervention to your specific experience so you can stop living in fear and regain control of your life.

Unwanted, intrusive thoughts that play over and over in your mind can end up taking over and leading to significant distress. A common theme for new parents is about something harmful happening to their baby or even about you accidentally harming your baby. These thoughts do not put you at higher risk of harming your baby, but they can lead to other repetitive thoughts, actions, or rituals that feel like they balance out the harmful thought and relieve some of this anxiety in the short-term. Together we will unpack these distressing thoughts and individualize a cognitive-behavioral intervention that is right for your specific experience and needs so that you can understand what is going on and why, and effectively break the cycle.

Some new parents experience trauma surrounding pregnancy or the birth of their baby, and moms and partners can develop Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Traumatic stress presents in a variety of ways including intrusive thoughts and images (such as flashbacks), changes in mood, anxiety, feelings of panic like racing heart, trouble catching your breath, sweating, and nightmares, insomnia, and other difficulties surrounding sleep. At Unpolished Parenthood, we will help you understand and make sense of how you feel by using a targeted intervention individualized to your experience that reduces anxiety and traumatic stress so it no longer permeates your life, allowing you to move forward and find peace.

After a loss, the story of your life is forever changed. The way we heal is a process that looks different for every person, even within a family unit. We will work together on the process of reconstructing and renegotiating life following a loss.