How to Deal With Postpartum Depression: 9 Tips for Coping

What Is Postpartum Depression?

Postpartum Depression (PPD) is a specific depression that occurs during the transition of adding a new baby into the family. Postpartum depression impacts one in seven mothers. Additionally, one in ten fathers experiences male postpartum depression.^{1, 2} PPD can negatively affect a person’s ability to sleep, take care of themselves or others, and their overall mood. In some cases, those with PPD may experience suicidal ideation.

Is Postpartum Depression Just the “Baby Blues”?

No, postpartum depression is not synonymous with the baby blues. Baby blues is a more common experience after birth due to hormonal fluctuation and acute sleep deprivation. Baby blues peaks 3-5 days after delivery and does not last longer than two weeks. If symptoms of teariness, reactivity, and exhaustion last longer than two weeks following birth, it is more likely postpartum depression than baby blues.

Common symptoms of postpartum depression include:

• Lack of interest in the baby and things or activities you used to enjoy.
• Feeling angry or irritable
• Insomnia/sleep disturbance
• Pervasive feelings of guilt, shame, and sadness
• Persistent crying and hopelessness
• Changes in appetite
• Thoughts of harming yourself or the baby
• Fatigue
• A significant drop in motivation ¹

9 Tips for How to Cope With Postpartum Depression

Many factors can impact postpartum depression, so there are many routes to consider when looking to cope with the condition. Overall, coping tips can fall into two broad categories: focusing on the struggling person’s physical and mental well-being and receiving help and support from others. Support can come from a multitude of places, so it is crucial to keep an open mind when considering what help might look like.

Here are nine tips for dealing with postpartum depression:

1. Maintain a Healthy Sleep Routine

Sleep is the most essential preventative and healing factor for new mothers/parents regarding postpartum depression. The body must have adequate rest and reset times, a.k.a sleep, to maintain physical and emotional health. Sleep’s impact on mental health cannot be understated, especially for navigating postpartum depression.

Since the main sleep-related issue for new parents is often infant night feedings, getting creative may be necessary. The first step is to do everything you can to ensure good sleep hygiene. Creating a calm, soothing space to sleep in and following a set bedtime routine can allow you to fall asleep faster and obtain a higher quality of sleep.

Additionally, sharing nighttime feeding shifts with your partner, having a grandparent or friend come in to help, or hiring a postpartum doula to help with nighttime feedings are also beneficial ways to allow you time to rest and heal. Lastly, it’s important to remember to hold expectations of ourselves lightly, so if you can’t sleep, shift your focus to just resting.

2. Prioritize Self-Care

Self-care is critical for any mother’s recovery and their partner’s long-term sustainability within parenthood. Without taking time for yourself, you risk parental burnout and raising children who feel like they are a burden. Self-care can look like treating yourself but is more often focused on the necessary tasks to tend to physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual well-being, which gives us the benefits of being aligned in all areas of our lives.

Self-care can be adding movement, creativity, or social time to your life. Practically, it can work best to schedule a specific time block every week for you and for your partner to take turns to have time to yourself to pursue whatever self-care you need for the week.

3. Incorporate Movement When Possible

There are numerous mental health benefits of exercise and movement. Movement is helpful for physical well-being but can also serve as an emotional outlet, particularly for those struggling with PPD. While this can feel challenging during this season of life, it’s important to hold realistic expectations that align with our time and energy limitations. Gentle stretching or taking a short walk with the baby can significantly improve mental and emotional health. ⁴

4. Strive for a Balanced Diet

Maintaining a balanced diet can seem difficult to focus on when you’re taking care of a newborn, but it can also majorly impact your mental health. Regardless of hormone and physical changes, sleep deprivation, and the overall decrease in movement and getting outside with a newborn, poor nutrition alone has the ability to influence low mood and is an essential part of managing postpartum depression.⁵ Focusing on getting an abundance of fruits and vegetables, protein, and whole grains can help meals to feel more filling and to fuel you longer.

5. Examine Your Support

Support can come in the form of emotional and practical help. While it’s critical to receive support in both areas, not everyone is able or willing to provide that level of assistance. For example, your partner may thrive in giving practical support (cooking, housework, etc.) but may feel lost giving emotional support.

Think creatively about where different forms of support can come from – your partner, friends, parents or in-laws, faith community, hired assistance – and consider specifically what forms of help you’re comfortable receiving from each. People cannot read your mind, so remember that it’s okay to be direct in asking for what you need and how you need it. Additionally, remember that someone may not be able to provide that type or level of help, so if that happens, just move to your next available option.

6. Consider the Baby’s Feeding Options

While breastfeeding is a great option to sustain your baby’s health, Your baby also deserves a mother that is the best version of herself. Choosing how to feed your baby is highly personal. The ultimate decision should be based on what is best for you and not result from guilt or shame over what you think you should be doing.

Breastfeeding and depression have a bi-directional relationship, meaning that breastfeeding can impact depression and vice versa.⁶ Women who exclusively breastfeed may be less likely to be depressed and experience lower stress levels.⁷ However, depression leads to lower breastfeeding rates and overall stopping breastfeeding earlier.⁸

7. Join a Support Group

An incredibly important part of emotional support during the postpartum period is receiving non-judgemental listening. However, our closest family members and friends may not be able to provide that due to their relationship with you and the baby.

If friends, family, and others in your life can offer you this kind of support, be sure to lean on them. If they are unable to, joining an in-person or online support group can help to fill this need. Talking things out is essential for venting and processing your experiences, allowing you to figure out how to move forward.

8. Examine Your Boundaries

If you’re receiving help, but it’s feeling more draining than helpful, it may be time to examine the current boundaries you have in place to see if they’re focused on what is best for you. Limiting the type and scope of help you receive from others, the schedule and frequency of visitors to meet the baby, and your communication patterns are all ways of setting healthy boundaries that may help you to prioritize the rest and care that you need while managing postpartum depression.

9. Get Professional Help

There are many professional support options available during the postpartum period. For mental health, there are postpartum-specific mental health therapists, psychologists, and even online psychiatrists available. There are medication options that you can access while breastfeeding in order to protect your mental health and to make continuing breastfeeding an option (if that is something you want). There are also mental-health-based groups, lactation consultants, pelvic floor therapists, postpartum doulas, and other options to find the help you need.

When to Seek Professional Help for PPD

If you think that PPD could be impacting your functioning or your ability to bond and care for your baby, it may be time to seek professional help. Treatment for postpartum depression may include talk therapy, parent-child bonding therapy, medication, or a combination of these.

How long it lasts entirely depends on your symptoms and the treatment routes that you are comfortable engaging in. Getting a qualified therapist or prescriber that is the right fit as a therapist is crucial, but you have the option to get treatment in-person or online if you are worried about putting another thing into your schedule. If you’re ready to begin your search, an online therapist directory can get you started.

Postpartum depression may be treated with:

• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT): CBT for depression focuses on identifying and changing dysfunctional thought patterns that can impact mood and behavior. Disrupting unhelpful thought patterns can give the space to create new habits and behaviors that are more sustainable long term.
• Attachment and Parent-Infant Therapies: PPD can impact a parent’s ability and desire to attach to their baby effectively. Attachment and Parent-Infant therapies can assess and help facilitate a more secure attachment between the parent(s) and the baby.
• Couples therapy: Becoming parents/expanding your family is a major life transition, and it is normal for your relationship to struggle to adjust to this new life phase. Couples therapy can help you identify and prioritize what your relationship needs in this new season of life that you are navigating together.
• SSRIs: SSRIs be helpful in treating and managing depression during pregnancy and during postpartum because they help increase serotonin in the brain.⁹ Working with a perinatal trained prescriber is critical when considering medication in order to understand risks and what will work best to manage your mental health concerns.
• SNRIs: SNRIs can help manage perinatal depression because they impact the brain’s chemical messengers (neurotransmitters) and help to relieve depression and regulate mood.¹⁰ Again, working with a perinatal trained prescriber is critical when considering medication in order to understand risks and what will work best to manage your mental health concerns.
• Other medications: Zulresso and Zurzuvae are two medications recently approved by the FDA as treatments for PPD. Talk to your doctor about the risks and benefits of these treatments.

Final Thoughts

If you think you or a loved one may be struggling with perinatal or postpartum depression, get connected with support and help. There is an abundance of resources available. Remember that your baby deserves to have the best version of you that you are able to give them, and it says nothing negative about you if you need some help to get there.