:: ARTICLE ::
An Emotional Roller-Coaster: Recovery After Birth
First published in Homeopathy Today
Excitement | Shock
| Sadness | Disappointment | Resentment
Anger | Guilt | Fear | Worry | Confusion | Indifference | Despair
Overwhelmed Partners | "Debriefing" after
the Birth
 Birth
is a life-changing experience, and each birth brings with it a new and
different set (assortment?) of experiences and feelings. Hopefully your
birth was a happy occasion, but it may have been unexpectedly hard–or
even downright disappointing. After the birth hormonal changes can play
havoc with your body and your feelings, and you will find it helpful (rewarding?)
to integrate the changes by acknowledging and dealing with the feelings
that come up in the days, weeks and months after your baby has arrived.
The feelings you experience after birth may be the most intense you have
ever encountered: great surges of joy and happiness; delicious feelings
of contentment and fulfillment; overwhelming fears and worries; waves
of sadness, of shock. So many feelings can bubble up that some women feel
as if they are on an emotional roller coaster!
I have listed some common feelings below. You may experience more than
one at a time i.e. shock and loss, anger and guilt, excitement and confusion,
or find yourself yo-yoing between one and another whilst you come to terms
with the transition from pregnancy to motherhood.
Excitement
Feelings of joy and euphoria immediately after the birth can
be overwhelming as you bond with your baby and find yourself ‘falling
in love' in a way that you had never dreamed of. Like any other emotion,
this one needs expressing and enjoying, but not so that it gets out of
hand–as it can actually prevent women from resting or sleeping and sometimes
from eating!
The wonder that comes with welcoming your baby can be completely breathtaking,
this is someone you have carried but haven't known and is now (one of)
the most intimate relationship(s) of your life. It's a happy miracle!
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Shock
This can be quite mild i.e. you can't believe you have made a
real live baby–one moment you were pregnant with your baby inside you–and
now here he or she is! Or that you are now a parent–and you don't feel
any more grown up! Or the shock can be severe–nothing feels quite real,
with feelings of fear and anxiety.
Shock is common after a fast labour or if you have had Pethadine during
labour and didn't feeling fully present, emotionally, during the actual
birth, or if you had a Caesarean under a general anaesthetic.
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Sadness
Some women experience sadness in waves–crying over nothing much,
or over silly, little things, or feeling sentimental at seeing a puppy
or a baby on television (even in a toilet paper ad!). This is a part and
parcel or the hormonal roller coaster. It is also common to feel sad and
lonely once the first wave of visitors have left, especially if you are
a single parent or your partner works long hours. The days can drag by,
especially in the winter months.
There can be a surprising feeling of emptiness after the birth with the
loss of the pregnancy, especially for women who have enjoyed their pregnancy,
who loved carrying their babies and who find that they miss that special
closeness.
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Disappointment
It can be hard to come to terms with disappointment, whether
this centres around the birth itself or the baby–with either of them being
not what you expected. For example, you had set your heart (maybe secretly)
on a girl and are shocked and disappointed that he is a boy baby. This,
like all feelings, needs talking and working through so that it doesn't
become an additional stress.
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Resentment
Regrets and resentments around the birth itself are common, especially
if you ended up with a different birth from the one you really wanted.
And then there are the resentments that come with all that has to be done,
especially for a demanding baby and other family members, with no time
left over for you.
Well-meaning visitors, including health care professionals, may put their
attention into your new baby and it can be a shock to feel relatively
unimportant after a pregnancy where you were made to feel special. Many
women resent the loss of freedom (especially with a first baby) after
an independent life. Some women find themselves missing their former pre-pregnant,
tight-muscled body, feeling bad about resentful feelings towards their
baby and their partner for ‘causing' changes in their bodies.
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Anger
You may feel angry at things that went wrong during or after
the birth, especially if your baby needed medical attention. The post
natal period is fertile ground for angry feelings: from partners who don't
pull their weight or who are absent, to older children who act out their
jealousy over the new baby to parents and out-laws who tell you what to
do.
Every new mother feels frustrated with their baby at some point, especially
if she cries a lot (and can't be calmed), or wakes frequently at night.
It can be hard to come to terms with the intensity of love and anger that
can well up at the same time. Many women find themselves snapping in the
middle of the night, wailing with their babies and feeling helpless–this
is a sign to get support, rather than wait until anger has built up to
unmanageable proportions.
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Guilt
This feeling can surface with any or all of the other feelings,
but especially with anger (mothers shouldn't get angry with their babies),
or if you feel depressed and are dragging yourself around especially if
you think that you don't have a good reason to feel down.
It is common to feel guilty about the lack of time you are giving to your
partner or your other children, especially if you have a high maintenance
(demanding) baby!
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Fear
Fears can come in waves as you adjust to the reality that you
have responsibility for the demands of a new little person–who cannot
tell you yet what she wants, or what is wrong with her when she cries.
It is common to be frightened about whether your baby will be alright,
to be fearful for her health, especially when others are holding her (in
case they drop her or breath germs on her). New mothers can wake in fright
at night wondering whether their babies are still breathing.
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Worry
Feelings of anxiety can weave themselves in and amongst all the
other feelings: anxiety about how you are going to cope, especially if
you are struggling financially or if you have to go back to work, worries
about the baby and whether you will be a ‘good' mother. Facing your own
hopes and expectations of motherhood and how different they are from the
reality can be hard (anxiety-inducing) especially if this is your first
baby.
Women with a lack of self confidence, those who grew up in a dysfunctional
family (who had unpleasant childhood experiences, whose own mother was
emotionally or physically absent) may find parenting particularly worrisome.
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Confusion
Many women find their brains turn to ‘mush' in the weeks after
the birth, the breastfeeding hormones have a ‘softening' affect which
can affect the mind as well as the body! It is common to find thinking
and concentrating difficult, to become absent-minded and forgetful. A
sense of humour is enormously helpful!
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Indifference
There is such a high expectation to have strong feelings that
it can be a shock to feel relatively little, especially towards the baby.
Some women take a while to bond with their babies, this is more common
if mother and baby are separated immediately after the birth (because
either the mother or the baby need medical attention), or if there is
a lack of adequate post-natal support with women who have had a stressful
pregnancy with a big emotional stress such as a bereavement.
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Despair
This surfaces when too many other feelings come at once, when
the demands on your time and energy are overwhelming, when you feel that
you just can't cope. Women wonder whether life will ever feel normal,
and ask themselves how they will ever manage to do simple, ordinary things
like washing their hair and cooking a simple meal again.
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Overwhelmed Partners
A satisfying birth will hopefully strengthen your relationship
and leave both you and your partner feeling closer. A difficult birth
followed by post-natal stress and a demanding baby may leave you feeling
shipwrecked and drive a wedge between you and your partner that is difficult
to heal. You will need to look at answering each other's needs in ways
that may be different now that the baby has arrived.
Fathers can so easily feel left out of the picture, the mother and baby
picture ... going to work and coming home to a pile of nappies and one
of washing up, an exhausted spouse and a crying baby. Suddenly the picture
doesn't look so rosy!
It is important to remember that partners have feelings too! Fathers can
feel any or all of the emotions that mothers go through, and they need
to acknowledge them and deal with them in order to stay healthy. They
need to take time to recover from the birth, especially if they were active
birthing partners.
Plan to spend some time with each other on a regular basis (without the
baby), once a week for an evening is a good beginning and will keep your
relationship healthy–remember, children have a habit of surviving, relationships
do not.
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"Debriefing" after the Birth
Tell the story of your birth, bearing in mind that the more difficult
your birth, the more talking you will need to do. You will find it healing
to tell your birth story over and over again so that you can understand
how it affected you. Talk about how you are feeling with people you trust,
who care about you. Ask them just to listen to you and not to try and
talk you out of your feelings. As you talk you may be surprised at the
feelings that come up: even weeks or months afterwards. Don't listen (or
talk) to people who suggest (however kindly) that you ‘put it behind you,
after all you and your baby are both OK'...you will recover faster if
you acknowledge these feelings, however painful they are. If you pretend
they aren't there this can create an inner tension that, given the right
combination of circumstances, will contribute to post-natal depression
developing.
Write an account of the birth, putting in as much detail as you can remember.
As you write notice the feelings that surface and write about them too.
When you have finished you may want to read it to your partner or let
him read it, and then talk some more about it.
© Miranda Castro
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