Understanding Postpartum Emotions: Is it “baby blues,” depression, or motherhood?

Postpartum can feel like such an intense emotional rollercoaster. As someone who’s always been a “big feeler,” I noticed that after having a baby, the volume of every emotion I felt seemed to be cranked up by like 1000%. If you’re navigating big waves of feelings (or wondering why you’re not feeling much at all), this post is for you.

What Are the “Baby Blues”?

The term “baby blues” refers to the intense and often overwhelming emotions that many new mothers experience during the first few weeks after giving birth. Think of the scene in Friends after Rachel gives birth and finds herself crying over having put her slippers on the wrong feet. Sometimes the big waves of emotion make sense to you and are just bigger versions of what you would usually feel, but sometimes it feels like you have no idea what brought the feeling on or why it feels so powerful. What exactly causes these surges of feelings?

Physiological Changes After Birth

Following delivery, your body undergoes massive hormonal shifts, including:

• A steep drop in estrogen and progesterone levels

• An increase in oxytocin and prolactin

These changes, combined with the physical exhaustion from childbirth and the sleep deprivation that inevitably follows, cause 60-80% of new mothers to experience a pronounced increase in:

• Tearfulness

• Emotional lability (rapid and intense mood swings or changes in emotion)

• Emotional reactivity

“Baby Blues” Can Involve a Range of Emotions

Despite the term “blues”, the emotions are not necessarily always sad. They can encompass the full emotional spectrum, from joy and gratitude to rage and frustration to sadness and blues. What really distinguishes baby blues is that the emotions come in big waves that can change quickly and may seem out of proportion to what you would typically experience.

When Do “Baby Blues” Start and End?

• Start: Usually within the first couple of days after delivery

• Peak: Around 3-5 days postpartum

• Resolution: Typically resolves within two weeks

If emotional symptoms continue beyond two weeks, this is generally no longer considered the baby blues.

When to Be Concerned: Postpartum Depression and Anxiety

If you’re still encountering symptoms after two weeks, it might be a sign of postpartum depression (PPD) or postpartum anxiety (PPA). Here are some symptoms to watch for:

Postpartum Depression Symptoms

• Persistent sadness or hopelessness

• Feeling numb (maybe you’re feeling completely void of emotion) or disconnected

• Loss of interest or pleasure in activities

• Excessive guilt or feelings of worthlessness

• Difficulty concentrating or making decisions

• Difficulties eating (lack of appetite) or sleeping (inability to sleep even when the baby is sleeping)

Postpartum Anxiety Symptoms

• Excessive, uncontrollable worry

• Panic attacks

• Agitation or irritability

• Restlessness or racing thoughts

• Difficulty concentrating

• Tension in your body

• Difficulty sleeping when you have the opportunity

Feeling a Wide Range of Emotions is Normal

Grief, anxiety, sadness, anger, and guilt are common emotions experienced by most new mothers. Becoming a mom is a massive life transition — one filled with both positive and painful emotions. We tend to hear a lot more about the joy and bliss and love that are a part of motherhood, but we don’t tend to hear as much about the more challenging emotions that arise. Normalizing the varied emotions that come with the transition to and the day to day experience of being a mother is so important. After all, mental health is not about the absence of pain or uncomfortable emotions, but rather about our capacity to feel the full range of emotion and to respond to whatever arises effectively with compassion, flexibility, and curiosity.

When to Seek Professional Support

What helps indicate whether professional support is necessary has to do with your response to your experience and the impact that it has on you. It’s important to reach out for professional support if your emotions are causing:

• Clinically significant distress: Feeling overwhelmed by guilt, shame, worry, or sadness about your emotions or other symptoms

  And/or

• Functional impairment: Difficulty managing daily responsibilities or important areas of your life (e.g. difficulty caring for yourself or your baby, difficulty communicating or connecting with your partner, difficulty engaging in activities that bring you meaning or joy, difficulty attending to household or work tasks in a way that extends beyond the newborn period, pronounced rigidity or perfectionism that makes it difficult to deviate from your schedule/routine and causes great distress when things don’t go to plan, etc.)

You don’t have to white knuckle your way through motherhood. And while meeting criteria for a diagnosis does indicate the need for professional help, you also don’t need to meet criteria for a diagnosis to seek care.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed or unsure about what you’re experiencing, therapy — especially approaches tailored to new moms — can offer compassionate, effective support to help you through this profound transition.

If you are struggling with sadness, numbness, worry, guilt, anxiety, shame, grief, loneliness, or any other unexpected or uncomfortable emotion, finding yourself distressed by your experience, or finding it difficult to function in important areas of your life, you don’t have to white knuckle it on your own. If you think you may have postpartum depression, postpartum anxiety, postpartum OCD, or postpartum PTSD, seeking professional support is important.

If you’d like more information about my services, give me a call at 949-464-7684 or email me at annabelle@caaptherapy.com.

If you are in need of immediate support, call or text the Suicide & Crisis Line at 988 or the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline at 1-833-TLC-MAMA.