Whether you are trying to conceive (TTC) or have just become a new mom, having a baby introduces unique challenges that, societally, we do not pay enough attention to. It often feels like as soon as you become pregnant, all attention shifts to the baby. It can feel like you are "supposed" to feel overwhelmed with love and anticipation of your new child, but you might have a complex reaction of contradictory emotions as well, like excitement and anxiety, joy and depression, hope and hopelessness. Many expectant mothers feel guilty for feeling this way, believing that the joyous feelings should come naturally and that there must be something "wrong" with them, and so hesitate to reach out for help. As we will discuss below, pregnancy therapy and therapy for new moms can be extremely helpful to help regulate emotions, process painful experiences, and to feel supported throughout your journey. 

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Maternity therapy encompasses several distinct aspects of becoming a new mother. From trying to conceive (TTC), to pregnancy, to postpartum and being a new mom, to parenting a young child our therapists can help. 

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Trying to Conceive

Trying to conceive (TTC) can be a painful and difficult process that many couples feel that they have to bear privately. It can be a roller coaster, both too intimate and too uncertain to discuss openly and, if you are navigating in-vitro fertilization (IVF) or intrauterine insemination (IUI), it can feel othering to talk to those you are close to. Having someone who understands the process – the diet, the injections, the retrievals – the difficulties – the cost, the embryo damage, the PGT-A – and the real process – the diet, the heating pads, the socks – can be invaluable. 

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Pregnancy

Nobody in this world gets as much unsolicited advice or boundary-crossing comments as a pregnant woman. The amount of times you will hear sentences that begin with "just wait until..." or "enjoy it now because when..." will make you want to pull your hair out. Parents, grandparents, friends, even strangers will weigh in on what you can be doing better, or what they read about something, or how you look. As with so many things, pregnancy is an intimate and deeply personal thing that women have to shoulder publicly. 

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Knowing that their pregnancy will be observed, and possibly commented on, wherever they go causes many women to feel on edge and more irritable than they want to be. And, because it is all anyone wants to talk about, it makes many women to feel that their work, their accomplishments, even who they are as a person, is superseded by being pregnant: a few months ago you were a managing director and now you’re just pregnant. It is hardly a surprise, then, that the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology (ACOG) estimates that one in ten women experience depression during pregnancy;[1] Post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which occurs in roughly 3% of all pregnant women, skyrockets to 18% in high risk pregnancies;[2] and roughly one in five women experience perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs).[3]

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Postpartum Therapy and Therapy for New Moms​

Becoming a mother can be an extraordinarily rich and rewarding experience but you can also feel more invisible than at any other time in your life. The message inundating new mothers from social media is that you should be ashamed or feel lesser-than if you feel anything other than an all-encompassing sense of fulfillment. 

 

That false narrative can leave you feeling gaslit, unseen, and unsupported. The reality is that motherhood is messy. Roughly one in five women experience perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) [3] and, as one study examining womens' experiences of their own bodies during pregnancy and postpartum: "Body dissatisfaction dominated the postpartum period."[4-5] On top of that, shifts in responsibilities and the new roles you and your partner must adopt can put a strain on your relationship. Researchers have found that in 20-59% of couples relationship satisfaction decreases a full standard deviation after the birth of a child and that nearly a third fall into the clinical range of marital distress during the first 18 months after birth. [6] 

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It doesn't need to be that way. Too many mothers wait to reach out, thinking that things will change on their own, or that this is just a phase they are going through. Couples therapy can help you reunite with your partner and therapy for postpartum depression, therapy for postpartum anxiety, and therapy for postpartum stress is effective [7] and can help you to feel confident in your body, to learn to parent the way you want to, and to feel satisfied in a life that feels really, truly, yours.​

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[1] American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. (n.d.) Depression during pregnancy. Retrieved from: https://www.acog.org/womens-health/faqs/depression-during-pregnancy

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[2] Yildiz, P. D., Ayers, S., & Phillips, L. (2017). The prevalence of posttraumatic stress disorder in pregnancy and after birth: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Journal of affective disorders, 208, 634-645.

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[3] Fairbrother N, Young A, Antony M, & Tucker E (2015). Depression and anxiety during the perinatal period. BMC Psychiatry, 15(206).

 

Byrnes L (2018). Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. The Journal for Nurse Practitioners, 14(7), 507–513.

 

[4] Hodgkinson, E. L., Smith, D. M., & Wittkowski, A. (2014). Women’s experiences of their pregnancy and postpartum body image: a systematic review and meta-synthesis. BMC pregnancy and childbirth, 14, 1-11.

 

[5] Olsson, A., Lundqvist, M., Faxelid, E., & Nissen, E. (2005). Women's thoughts about sexual life after childbirth: focus group discussions with women after childbirth. Scandinavian journal of caring sciences, 19(4), 381-387.

 

[6] Cowan, C.P. & Cowan, P.A. (1995). Interventions to ease the transition to parenthood: Why they are needed and what they can do. Family Relations: Journal of Applied Family & Child Studies, 44, 412–423.

 

Cowan, C.P. & Cowan, P.A. (2000) When partners become parents: The big life change for couples. Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates

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[7] Li, X., Laplante, D. P., Paquin, V., Lafortune, S., Elgbeili, G., & King, S. (2022). Effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy for perinatal maternal depression, anxiety and stress: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Clinical psychology review, 92, 102129. 

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Jiang, X., Li, H., Wang, D., Shan, L., Wang, F., & Kang, Y. (2022). Efficacy of nondrug interventions in perinatal depression: a meta-analysis. Psychiatry research, 317, 114916.

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