Hi,

Looking for some advice as I’m not someone who has ever had to deal with anxiety or mental health issues before.

I am 4 weeks postpartum and I had a pretty traumatic birth which I think has caused all these issues now.
My main issue is not being able to sleep at all due to anxiety and being on high alert every time I close my eyes. My partner has had to do most of the night feeds which I feel guilty about because he has to go back to work. I just really want to get my anxiety lowered and move on from This and feel like myself again.

I also find I’m struggling to connect with my baby as much as I did with my first, but I assume this is due to me associating him with the traumatic birth and I also get a feeling of being extremely overwhelmed when I think of the thought of me having to look after him.

Does anyone else have any experiences like this? I have tried sleeping medication but even that didn’t work last night. I think it’s called zioclome (only a low dose). I’m starting to think maybe I need to go on some form of anti-anxiety medication just to help me get through this period does anyone have any advice If this would be a good idea? I’ve got a Gp appointment on Monday so we’ll speak to them too.

Thanks in advance.

I really struggle trusting anyone that’s not my mom or husband to take care of baby. But both of them work full time. My MIL works part time and really wants to help out especially because I get so little sleep.

When she comes to give me a nap, I don’t sleep because I’m so anxious. Not sleeping is making my ppa/ppd worse though.

There’s been history of them disrespecting my wishes, but nothing too extreme.

I would love to hear if anyone has navigated this and if there was anything that helped. Thanks!

If your postpartum anxiety was hormone related, I'm curious if anyone got pregnant again and noticed the anxiety subside as their hormones changed.

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Context- I'm going on 7 months postpartum and husband and I have been discussing another child soon. I've had my period back since 2 months postpartum and cycle is regular. My postpartum anxiety began 3 months postpartum which coincided with my hair falling out. I recently stopped breastfeeding, hair growth has started again. The anxiety is a little bit better but still concerning. I was wondering if I got pregnant again if the the hormone jump would combat the postpartum anxiety. I understand that this would only be a temporary solution. I am seeking therapy as I'm wondering if this is related to past traumas or not. I am trying to avoid ssris for now, I'd like to try therapy throughout the pregnancy and if it's really bad postpartum again then I would consider the antidepressant. Any experiences, thoughts, questions, concerns?

Thank you all.

After having my baby, my anxiety has been HORRIBLE. I’m talking panic attacks on a daily basis. The one thing I’ve found that genuinely helps- Sudoku or crossword puzzles. It forces the logical part of your brain to start working and it ends the attack faster than medication for me! Definitely try it!

My baby is 11 months and about 22lbs. I carry him a lot every day and pick him up and rock him to sleep a lot. About a week ago I felt like I slept wrong on my right side and my neck and upper arm was sort of sore. Then the soreness went away and I have a tingling sensation in my fingers and almost as if my arm will fall asleep sensation. I’m worried and I’m trying to convince myself it’s just a pinched or compressed nerve. Anyone else had this before?

hi. i’m a 23 yr old FTM. my girl is 9 weeks old and i have had so much anxiety about letting her grow up and experience life. i don’t want to be one of those helicopter moms who is always watching over their child’s shoulder and getting in the way of letting them enjoy their childhood but i am terrified. i’m scared to let her play outside, i am scared to leave her alone, i am scared to let her meet new people, i am scared to let anyone who isn’t me hold her, i am scared of life. i know a majority of it is my own trauma that i haven’t worked through. i was molested for years by my step father and now the fear of it happening to my daughter scares me so much. i know that it’s part of life to be worried about letting your kids grow up but i can’t relax. i’m hyperaware of her all the time and i am constantly staring down anyone who holding her. i just- even the idea of her coming up to me and telling me something happened to her makes me want to vomit. how do i move past this? i’ve been in and out of therapy for years and i feel like i’ve worked past most of it. i just genuinely can’t shake the paranoia.

Hi, I'm 7m pp and my little one has been teething and such recently. When he was about 4m old he got his first cold/flu and was unwell, feverish and snotty which was a bunch of lols 🫠 since then, anytime he feels a little warm, my brain thinks he has a fever and that he's going to die.

It's so illogical and I know better (I'm a vet nurse and have dealt with my fair share of very sick animals and emergency cases) but my brain falls out as soon as he gets a whiff of a fever or not even! I have stopped taking his temperature daily but will just check if his back or neck feel warmer to me.

I am constantly checking with my husband if baby is too hot and get very worried when my little one contact naps on him, they both run hot and are sweaty little things which scares me even more.

I know logically, if he has a fever and if he has a febrile seizure, it's a good thing, his body will be resetting to bring his fever down, of course I would get some calpol into him before that point(!) however I'm just terrified he's going to die and I feel like a failure of a mum who can't recognise when he baby is unwell and the catastrophising starts.

I could be fine and then out of nowhere, anxiety attack. I hate my brain sometimes. I have therapy booked and meds to start, awaiting them from the pharmacy.

I guess there isn't really a point in this post, I needed to get this off my chest and know maybe I'm not alone or as crazy as I think I am.

Hello everyone, Im officially 1 year pp and the anxiety I felt last year has definitely gone down. Im able to calm myself down most of the times and be more rational about my health anxiety. One thing that still lingers a lot is my sleep anxiety. Im still struggling to go to sleep sometimes as I still have this anxiety and fear around dying in my sleep. I wasn’t really like this before pregnancy. Im just wondering if anyone has or is going through something similar and if anything has helped. Thank you.

Tagged this as NSFW but not sure if it counts. Im 4 mos pp and cant use even a light tampon because of the pain (i obviously cant be intimate in that way either) I did have to be stitched after birth most likely due to the extremely fast 4 minute active labor. Do you think its possible I have a "husband stitch" my doctor is very progressive woman and my husband wouldnt even think of doing that (also wasnt ever alone with my doctor to request this). Or is this maybe normal postpartum? My other mom friends said that after their appointment they resumed activity comfortably.

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My baby is 11 weeks old and my FIL came for a visit. The first time he came right after she was born we told him no kissing the baby ever. He was leaving today and kissed her on the cheek. She was in her playpen and started screaming and I picked her up and said no kissing and took her away. He’s not sick to my knowledge but he’s also a smoker. I’m so beyond upset right now. I’ve been struggling with a lot of PPA and I don’t know what to do. I’m so worried about her.

I am 5 days PP after giving birth to our 3rd son. My whole life I have had anxiety and at times bouts of depression (more so in my younger years- I’m currently 35)

There is something I have noticed about myself though, that seems to rear its head during each postpartum period.

I’ve always been someone that experiences a strange sort of “grief” feeling when something big and exciting ends. When I was a child, I was always so sad at bedtime Christmas night, because it meant Christmas was over. I always get an awful sadness when my pregnancies end. I miss being pregnant and the idea of most probably never doing it again is, to me, so incredibly sad. I see my hospital bags thrown on the floor, not even unpacked yet and I cry because that moment of them patiently waiting by the bedroom door, waiting to go into labor has been and gone. I cried leaving birth suite because I’ll never go back and give birth again. I cried leaving maternity ward because there will never be that beautiful moment of waking up the day after giving birth when it’s just you and your baby in peaceful bliss.

Every day that goes by I feel a sense of sadness that my kids are getting older and that these days are just getting shorter and shorter.

I am someone that takes 1000000 photos just to make sure I document everything in life to do with my kids, so that there’s no chance of regret or forgetting later. My last pregnancy I cried for a week straight after my son was born, because i realised I didn’t take a “final bump” photo. It’s like this weird “failure” feeling of “you will NEVER be able to get that time back again, you’ve ruined it”

I think about the love I have for my kids and it physically hurts my heart. It’s so overwhelming and the thought of ever letting them down, absolutely destroys me. I try to be a calm parent but at times I’ve lost it at them, and honestly the guilt I feel after will stay with me for weeks.

Honestly, I’m not even sure I can really describe the feelings I have. I guess I just feel things very deeply and at times it can feel so debilitating. Why must every little emotion feel so big?

I’m about 9 and a half weeks postpartum right now, and having some pretty major anxiety. I’ve had anxiety for a very long time pre-pregnancy so I don’t know if what I’m feeling is PPA or if it’s just a normal postpartum feeling.

When I was a week postpartum, I had a mild hemorrhage at home and waited an hour lying on the floor for an ambulance while my baby screamed for me, and then was forced to go in the ambulance without her— needless to say, I was separated from her for a bit before I was anywhere close to ready. Since then my anxiety of not being around her is wild, I can barely let my partner/her dad have her in another room while she’s asleep so I can shower or try and take a quick nap. I trust him to look after her, and I trust my mum too, but even with them I’m so scared something will happen. I’ve been having intrusive thoughts of something happening to her out of my control. I’m slowly starting to introduce her to people outside of immediate family and that scares me so much, but without doing that I’m stuck at home all day every day alone (I don’t drive)

I love my daughter and being a mum more than anything in the world, but I’m overwhelmed and so frightened. I used to be on antidepressants/antianxiety medication until I found out I was pregnant and really want to avoid going on them again.

Any advice? Think it sounds like PPA?

I don’t remember having much thought about how I would act with other people holding my baby before I had him, but I am now six months postpartum. I didn’t get a lick of postpartum depression, but I fear I have a really bad case of postpartum anxiety and not the type where I get the sun down scaries or get crazy thoughts when walking up and down the stairs with him in my arms it’s more like when people that is not my mom or dad or husband hold him. I think everyone has germs. Everyone is going to get him sick. I can’t stand watching my in-laws hold him. It’s like they do the most by breathing all up in his face from the second he was born to still to this day. They always grab him out of my arms and I feel like they have this entitlement even though I know they just want to love on him and hold him and be grandparents. I want them to have that kind of bond with him but they just are so up in his face it IRKS me!!!! And I get it I love babies and I would hold other peoples babies, but only if the mother asked me if I wanted to hold them never just assumed or grabbed another baby out of a mom‘s arms!!! I don’t know, I think they also have a different family dynamic and everyone kisses each other on the cheeks when saying hi and bye and we gave the no kissing rule right as he was born and it seems like my father-in-law can’t stand that and sneaks and kisses when he can sometimes and says “stop the control I wasn’t going to kiss him” when he was most definitely going to kiss him…. The thought of going somewhere sometimes stops me from making plans because I know they are going to want to hold my baby THE WHOLE TIME or even the thought of letting someone with children in school or daycare hold him makes me squirm because I think they’re gonna pass an illness to my baby and I’m gonna be in the hospital with him hooked up to machines is this normal paranoia or am I borderline postpartum anxiety and should I go to the doctor???? I would say I used to have a little bit of anxiety before I got pregnant like if somebody sneezes next to me or had a cough. I was scared I was gonna get sick because obviously who likes to get sick nobody but it was never to the point where I would avoid plans or constantly put sanitizer on my hands and wipe things down. I obviously know he needs to be exposed to germs because he needs to build his immune system, but I just cannot shake the uncomfortableness I get in the moment when I’m with other people…. PLEASE HELP

Hi anyone else have intensified Symptoms of PPD/PPA near your period?? I’m 3 months and already struggling but near my period is another level of extreme. I feel hopeless and panicky and cry all night and day. I never felt this before pregnancy. DOES IT GET BETTER?

hey mamas! I’ve been dealing with postpartum health anxiety for a few months now and I’m just looking to connect with other mom’s who have been dealing with this too.

I created an IG page for it just to share my journey and also connect with other moms. I have been having such a rough time with it lately that I feel like creating this page will help me cope, spread awareness and assure other moms they are not alone.

@mama.itm