Postpartum depression and anxiety skyrocketed in the pandemic’s early days. It hasn’t really gotten any better. diepthought writes
Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo Getty Images/Stanislaw Pytel Stephania Vu had a vision of what it would be like to give birth to her first child. She grew up in a large, close-knit Vietnamese family. Last year, as she was preparing for her son to be born, she imagined “a rotating door of family members who would be in and out helping me,” she explains.
Meanwhile, Neil seemed to cry nonstop. And Vu, who had expected to be surrounded by friends and family, felt completely alone. “The days were so, so, so, so long and lonely,” Vu recalls. “For me, it was not feeling as much of a connection with Neil at the beginning.” Vu would take extra long showers just to escape and to drown out the baby’s cries.
Now that we’re nearly two years into the pandemic, when schools and daycares have reopened, and much of the country is vaccinated, you might think that these rates of depression and anxiety would have decreased since those dark days of lockdown. But this isn’t necessarily what clinicians are seeing. “It was a nightmare for me, and my mental health took such a hit,” recalls Coggins. “I was crying every night.”
Women who have a history of anxiety and depression also have a higher risk of developing PMAD. According to Dr. Karestan Koenen, a professor of psychiatric epidemiology who co-authored the Harvard study, other risk-factors can include everything from having a high-risk pregnancy or a traumatic delivery, to struggling to breastfeed. Then there’s also life stressors, including “financial stressors … or life disruptions.
For Liz, who requested we only use her first name, those thoughts were constant after she gave birth to her son, Jackson, this past May. It got to a point where Liz was nervous letting Jack be in a separate room, even when her husband was with him. “I didn’t want anyone to be with Jack except for me,” she says.
Some of those who spoke to me for this story said they felt nervous about leaving their child in a day care, or worried about finding a nanny who is vaccinated. While newborns usually get weekly checkups, women are told they can follow up with their OB/GYN six weeks after giving birth. It sends the message, even unconsciously, that the health of the mother is not as important as the baby’s.
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