TREATING POSTPARTUM ANXIETY The good news is while these symptoms are really hard and often feel unbearable, they are all completely treatable. My treatment approach for postpartum anxiety includes four models, based on TEAM-CBT, created by Dr. David Burns. Rate your anxiety from 0-100 (with 100 being most intense) before and after each exercise to see if it was effective in helping you feel better.
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Fear. The women I’ve treated often have intrusive thoughts about their baby being harmed. According to postpartum expert Karen Kleinman in her book Dropping the Baby and Other Scary Thoughts , 91 percent of postpartum women struggle with these kinds of thoughts. Intrusive thoughts often include baby dying from suffocation, accidents, contamination, thoughts of intentional harm, unacceptable sexual thoughts, etc. These thoughts often bring on high anxiety and panic but actually pose no true danger to the baby, even though they feel really scary. Worry and nervousness. Women with postpartum anxiety share that they worry about every little thing, including baby’s health, balancing work, time with older children and their spouse, etc. They worry about not being good enough and sometimes worry they have made a big mistake in bringing a baby into the world. Tension. Women often talk about physically feeling tense. It’s hard for them to relax and enjoy the present moment with their baby and other loved ones. They are on edge, often hyper-vigilant about something bad happening. Irritation and anger. When you’re anxious, overwhelmed and tired, it doesn’t take much to trigger anger. Every little thing can start to annoy and irritate – baby’s cries, toddler’s demands, partner’s needs and desire to keep up the home and life in general all may start to grate on nerves.
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Consider the positives. Before we use tools to get rid of anxious symptoms, it is helpful to see why the anxiety is there first and what motivates it to stay around. It is counterintuitive, but the more we try to suppress anxiety, the louder it gets. Instead, we can honor it and see that it’s here for a reason. Write down 1) the benefits of your anxiety and 2) what your anxiety shows about you and your values that’s positive. For example, anxiety shows I really care about my baby’s well- being. It drives me to do research and seek advice so I can give my baby the best care possible. It shows I care about balancing time between my children and partner. I really care about doing a good job with this most important work. Even the intrusive thoughts drive me to see the worst case scenario so I can really prevent harm from happening to my child. The double standard. Write out your thoughts in a moment when you’re feeling anxious (for example, others are judging me and think I’m a bad mom). Then imagine you have a dear friend who is sharing with you her current struggles and her negative anxious thoughts and asking you if you think her negative thoughts are true. Write down what you’d say back to her. We’re often more likely to give grace, affirmation and validation to others than ourselves.
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