New moms, new challenges: tips on handling it all

It’s Wednesday afternoon at the Irondequoit Family Wellness Center on East Ridge Road, and several women with babies are gathering.

They’ve come for a drop-in peer support session organized by Parenting Village, a local nonprofit. They’ve come for the connection, and to support each other through the challenges of having a new baby.

Of course, one challenge is getting to places like this one, even though it offers help. One more mother arrives, harried but smiling, her baby chattering indecipherably in a determined voice. Speed-crawling, he starts exploring the moment she sets him down. Some of the mothers sit on the floor, their babies ranging from crawlers to early walkers.

This amid the unavoidable sleep deprivation that arrives along with a newborn. And compounding the problem is the side effect of a good thing: nursing.

“Nursing moms are often the only one feeding the baby initially, and this makes for a very tired mom,” explains Michele Burtner, a certified nurse midwife and senior associate of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry.

Part of the solution is to try to relax about certain things.

“It’s OK if the house is messy and the laundry isn’t done,” says Tara Gellasch, MD, associate chief of OB/GYN at Newark Wayne Community Hospital. And experienced parents gain some wisdom about how to respond. “By the third child, you know it’s OK if the baby cries for a few minutes.”

Less-sleep side effects

Sleep deprivation can also strain relationships, which often take a beating after a new baby arrives. According to research published in the Journal of Family Psychology, “67 percent of couples see their marital satisfaction plummet.”

Initial feelings of joy and awe can be dampened by new responsibilities, stress, exhaustion and diminished intimacy. “As new parents, we’re learning something we didn’t know before — it’s a whole new role, a whole new identity,” says Jessica Fowler, licensed clinical social worker.

Fowler encourages couples and families to be patient in their new reality. “Figuring out what that looks like takes time.”

Gellasch knows from her experience as a new mother. “I had my best friend come over and she found me in tears. She got me through it.”

Within her own practice, she says: “I see a lot of women giving up. They’ll try breastfeeding for a week or two and decide it’s too stressful.”

Gellasch supports her patients’ decision not to breastfeed, and she also notes “that feeling of inadequacy can be a trigger for depression.”

The blues or something else?

Postpartum depression is very different from the “baby blues.” According to Burtner, “the “baby blues” is a term used to describe the feelings of worry, unhappiness and fatigue that many women experience after having a baby,” and it affects about 80 percent of women after childbirth.

Postpartum depression, on the other hand, is characterized by “feelings of sadness and anxiety that can be extreme and might interfere with a woman’s ability to care for herself or her family,” Burtner says.

Fowler, who specializes in postpartum mood and anxiety disorders, shares a startling fact: “Postpartum depression is the number 1 complication of childbirth.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 11 to 20 percent of women who give birth each year have symptoms of postpartum depression. That’s about 600,000 women annually.

Fowler believes unreasonable expectations play a role in the stress and anxiety experienced by many new mothers. “Somehow we think we should just know how to be a mom, and there are expectations that you are going to take care of the baby and do everything else — take care of the house, go back to work,” she explains.

Many women put the added expectation on themselves that they are going to get back to their pre-pregnancy shape. Burtner cautions that such a goal “sets people up for getting back to where they were, and that might never happen.” She advises new mothers to keep their expectations reasonable. “Housework can sometimes be hard enough to accomplish, much less exercise,” she said.

Help yourself

For all of the challenges facing new mothers, there is help. Gellasch encourages new mothers to reach out to their healthcare providers. “Most OB/GYN and pediatric offices have lactation consultants,” and there are several independent lactation consultants in the Rochester area.

Patients should also reach out to their providers if they’re seeing signs of postpartum depression. “The biggest thing is simply being on high alert, and having the patient come in earlier than their six-week visit,” says Gellasch. “We [providers] may be able to prevent some suffering if we know early on.”

Family and friends can provide new moms with a brief respite by holding the baby while the mom takes a shower, helping with errands or household chores, caring for older children so mom and baby can nap, and simply relieving a new mother’s isolation just by visiting.

And for those new moms who don’t have connections in Rochester, several groups in the area offer peer support, socialization, parent education and activities.

Which brings us back to groups like Parenting Village. The nonprofit sponsors baby and toddler circles, a support group for mothers dealing with postpartum depression and anxiety, and events to bring families together and connect them with community resources.

Describing the value of Parenting Village and other support groups, Fowler says: “It’s hard for new moms to meet other mothers going through the same thing.” These groups offer that connection.

The mothers gathered in Irondequoit on Wednesday afternoon have come for just that — the support and compassion of people having the same experience. The babies play, nurse and explore while the moms encourage each other on sleep training, establishing routines, nutrition and breastfeeding. The moms open up about sometimes stinging criticism from friends and relatives, even partners. Some of their questions hint at self-doubt.

One of the facilitators makes a comment on expectations and self-compassion. “Moms get really tired, and a lack of sleep just heightens their anxiety,” she said. “Then, when they finally know what to expect, it all changes.”

The moms get it, and they laugh. Meanwhile, one of the mothers is trying to put the socks back on her baby’s feet. The speed-crawling explorer gets stuck between two office chairs and while his mother moves the furniture, another mom intercepts another baby who just sent a bag of tiny crackers flying across the carpet.

Unfazed, the facilitator sums it all up: “There’s always life happening.”