Postpartum
I’m going to tell my truth about postpartum, not to scare anyone because obviously I made it out of the trenches but so any new moms who might be pregnant or planning on having babies in the future aren’t super shocked by how bad it can get. This obviously doesn’t happen to everyone this is just what I personally experienced in both of my postpartum journeys.
Your postpartum experience will depend on your birth experience, such as if you tear and how bad the tear is, if you have an assisted birth such as the vacuum or clamps and if you had any traumatic experiences while birthing your baby.
Both postpartum experiences were a massive shock, between having stitches where no one should get stitches, the postpartum contractions, not being able to breast feed because of D-MER (Dysphoric milk ejection reflex) this condition effects women in different ways, I experienced anxiety, a sense of sadness and dread every single time I tried to breastfeed and it was so overwhelming I was told by midwives and a breastfeeding consultant to stop.
Choosing to stop breastfeeding for my mental health was an extremely tough decision, it made it harder when other people were trying to convince me to continue breastfeeding even though professionals were telling me to stop.
Eventually I was glad I stopped breastfeeding, for me it was a relief. Obviously if you can breastfeed your baby than definitely continue because there are so many benefits to breastfeeding but for myself I had to stop.
Sleep deprivation… sleep affects everything. For the first three months postpartum with both babies, I was waking up every 3 hours to feed and change nappies but it was worse with my second because I couldn’t sleep during the day because I had my toddler to look after. Sleep deprivation combined with mental illness isn’t a good combination. During postpartum mental illness can increase which is why it’s super important to have all the support you can get both personal and professional.
If you never had any mental health issues before postpartum can suddenly cause mental health issues so make sure to talk with your GP and tell them exactly how you feel, don’t be scared to express yourself fully! They are there to help you not judge you.
Postpartum absolutely sucks. I have experienced many different types of pain throughout my life and the most painful experience is definitely labor and postpartum. I could barely walk for the first 3 weeks and when I did force myself to walk around I felt exhausted from doing simple tasks.
I hope that if you’re pregnant or planning to have kids in the future that your experience is much better than mine!
