What is Perinatal Mental Health?
Perinatal Mental Health is all about your mental health during conception, pregnancy, miscarriage or loss, birth and postpartum. You may have heard of postpartum depression already. There are other things that most folks don’t know about…It’s not always rainbows and puppy dogs, like we are meant to think it’s “supposed to be”. For about 20% of women, the transition into parenthood can lead to severe mood changes.
There are things that don’t go as planned such as: Pregnancy or postpartum depression, anxiety, trauma, OCD and less frequently, bipolar disorder or psychosis. These are serious, but very treatable conditions.
Most people who are going through this feel very alone and feel guilty a lot of the time. But they are not alone. You are not alone. Basically, we don’t talk about the realities of pregnancy, birth and postpartum enough. So when a mom, dad or new parent is suffering, they think that there is something wrong with them. NOT TRUE. There IS something that they are dealing with, a real legitimate illness. That needs treatment. And Care. And Understanding. With the right kind of help, moms, dads and parents feel better.
So many people have been through a perinatal mood or anxiety disorder and are then inspired to help others. I’m one of them. There are lots of us who really get it.
Here are some of the other places I hang out…
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Twitter: @drkaeni
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