Helping mums overcome postpartum anxiety is one of my favourite areas of postpartum health. Having experienced postpartum anxiety myself after my first daughter, I understand how draining it can feel.
You may be wondering “whoa is it normal to have a lot of anxiety like this after having a baby?”, because the constant fear and worry can feel intense!
What does postpartum anxiety feel like?
+ Waking to check that baby is breathing multiple times a night
+ Imagine yourself tripping over while holding the baby (or insert your version of a scary thing happening)
+ Feeling wired or constantly on edge
+ Not able to trust anyone else with the baby (even though you desperately need a break!)
+ Insomnia
I remember feeling like I was running on adrenaline from the moment my daughter Honey was born.
We had a bit of a traumatic start to her life so I thought that I was just an ‘anxious mum’ and experienced all of the above (except insomnia).
Once I actually recognised it was anxiety I was able to move through the worst of it really quickly thanks to some nervous system support (that I’m going to share with you).
This also really helped me prepare for the postpartum stage with my second daughter. I did experience postpartum anxiety to a lessor degree and managed it beautifully with herbal medicine (passionflower I love you).
What causes postpartum anxiety?
It’s important to understand that postpartum anxiety is a result of the perfect storm of postpartum changes happening in our body. The extreme drop in hormones, changes to our stress response system – our hpa axis, (it’s heightened after pregnancy and can cause our Mama bear instinct to go into overdrive), as well as nutrient deficiencies all contribute to our nervous system being out of balance and our lovely calming hormones being suppressed.
Throw in the huge life adjustments, sleep deprivation, if there’s birth trauma, lack of support at home, recovery – these are an additional stress to the body. This can lead to more hormone disruption as production of our stress hormone cortisol will take priority over our other hormones. Yikes.
What we end up with is a mama who is in fight or flight mode and not producing enough of our anti-anxiety hormones to counteract the intense anxiety.
What we want to do is bring the body out of fight or flight mode, help the body produce those nice calming neurotransmitters, and create an environment that helps the body feel safe, relaxed and balanced.
Natural Remedies for Postpartum Anxiety
There aren’t many readily available options given to mums for how to cope with postpartum anxiety which is such a shame because there are actually some amazing tools. Like the ones I’m going to share with you now!
I use a combination of herbal medicine and nutrients to correct imbalances.
I love herbal medicine because it gives quick relief by helping the body produce the calming brain hormone GABA, as well as our happy hormone serotonin.
These are both commonly low in Postpartum anxiety thanks to the postpartum hormone drop + nutrient deficiencies.
Passionflower
Easily my favourite herb for Postpartum anxiety because it works so quickly. I like to give it in tincture form so mums can have an extra dose whenever they are feeling panicky, before bed for insomnia, whenever they have racing thoughts etc. It works by increasing GABA which is our main calming neurotransmitter, like our built in chill pill. Low GABA is common in ppa because the low progesterone and oestrogen. It’s shown to be as effective as prescription medication for anxiety.
Ashwaghanda (Withania)
I like this herb because its an adaptogen which means it literally helps the body adapt to stress. It builds up our resilience and works via the HPA-Axis regulating our stress hormone cortisol. This is important because when we are under stress the body will prioritise cortisol production over our hormones – not a great scenario when we already have postpartum hormone fluctuations. It’s incredibly soothing for the nervous system and is really helpful with mood, anxiety and insomnia.
I will often use these in combination with other nervous system and calming herbs however I wanted to highlight those two for you.
Next up are our building blocks of hormones and essential for calm.
Magnesium
Calms our nervous system and regulates our stress response system – the HPA axis. It also supports thyroid health which can impact mood and anxiety if it’s out of balance.
Zinc
Low zinc in combination with the low progesterone or oestrogen can cause intense anxiety by suppressing GABA and serotonin (our happy hormone). We also need zinc to keep our copper levels in check because high copper can also lead to feelings of anxiety. During pregnancy we have elevated levels of copper and for some women this doesn’t regulate out.
DHA (Omega 3)
This literally feeds our nervous system and our babies have very high needs for this during pregnancy and breastfeeding so you may very well be depleted. So essential when we’re looking at anxiety, mood and or insomnia.
Bonus Tip: Diaphragm Breathing
The simplest but crazy effective anxiety tool – your breath! Your breath regulates your nervous system and deep, belly breaths can have an almost immediate calming effect. Breathe into the belly without rising the chest, exhale and repeat. You can do this while feeding Bub, laying next to them or when you’re struggling to sleep – tune into your breath!
I’ll not here that other factors at play with postpartum anxiety can be low thyroid function, iron and vitamin D so chat to your Naturopath about looking at those.
The most important thing I hope you take away from this is that you have options for overcoming this! You deserve to feel relaxed, calm and enjoy this stage with your baby, without constant fear and worry.
It’s important to seek help, even if you’re well out of the postpartum stage – the hormone fluctations, hpa axis (adrenal) dysfunction and nutrient deficiencies can still be at play.
