Let’s Talk Perinatal Anxiety (aka PPA)
I know I am not alone when I say that I had no idea there were other perinatal mental health conditions outside of postpartum depression (PPD).
What’s more frustrating, as a therapist who attended graduate school and has many years in the field of mental health, the discussion of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) had never crossed my path.
What I also did not know until I did my perinatal mental health training was how common perinatal anxiety is.
Research has shown:
Around 15.8% of birth parents experience prenatal anxiety
Between 8% and 20% of people experience postnatal anxiety
Symptoms of perinatal anxiety include:
Excessive anxiety and worry
Difficulty controlling the worry (Ruminating, persistent thoughts)
Increased somatic symptom (e.g., muscle tension, heart palpitations, racing heart beat, shortness of breath, GI distress)
Agitation, irritability
Restlessness, inability to sit still, feeling on edge
Poor concentration (which is hard to determine if this is from anxiety or from sleep deprivation/hormones)
Easily fatigued, sleep disturbance (also hard to determine during the newborn stage when it feels like the baby is up at all hours of the night)
Perinatal anxiety is also almost equally as prevalent in co-parents/spouses/etc., too!
If you are feeling like you experienced, or are experiencing, perinatal anxiety, you are not alone.
Please check out Postpartum Support International at https://www.postpartum.net/ to find resources and support.
