Diseases & Conditions

Activities to Cope with Post-Partum Depression

Postpartum depression refers to the depression faced by women immediately after the delivaery of a baby. While many may expect that a mother should be all joyful and happy on the arrival of her newborn baby, usually, quite the opposite happens.

During pregnancy, there’s a spike in many hormones of the body, including estrogen, progesterone, thyroid hormones, and adrenal hormones. Immediately after a woman gives birth, there’s a sharp fall in the level of these hormones, which can make the woman feel lazy and depressed.

Post-partum depression is a real health issue for the mother, which is why it’s important to combat post-partum depression for the health of both the baby and the mother. Here are a few activities that can help relieve post-partum depression:

Mild Exercise

Exercise, of any form, helps combat depression of all forms. For mothers who have delivered recently, walking is highly recommended. Walking for at least 30 minutes a day can help relieve or lower post-partum depression. This is because walking or any other form of exercise helps release endorphins. However, before starting mild to severe exercise immediately after your baby’s birth, consult with your doctor first, especially if you had a baby through a caesarian section.

Breastfeed Your Baby

Breastfeeding your baby immediately after birth is highly recommended because the milk contains a lot of antibodies that protect your baby from infections. Breastfeeding your baby is not only great for the baby’s health but the skin-to-skin contact and eye-to-eye contact that you have with your baby during breastfeeding greatly help in alleviating or reducing the severity of your post-partum depression.

Connect with Other Moms

Motherhood is not an easy journey and it may become pretty overwhelming at first, especially if it’s your first baby. Talking to other moms through support groups can help relieve your post-partum depression because only they know exactly what you’re going through and can relate to you. They might even give you tips on how they tried to tone down their post-partum depression and which methods worked for them.

It’s very important to keep yourself busy and surrounded by supportive people after your pregnancy! Isolating yourself from everyone might just increase your post-partum depression.

Spend Some Quality Alone Time with Yourself

Focusing on yourself and your own needs after the pregnancy can be difficult because your needs may be overshadowed by those of your baby. However, neglecting yourself in any way, including personal hygiene, may result in an accentuation of your post-partum depression.

Therefore, you need to spend some quality time to regain a connection with your inner self. You need to set aside at least half an hour every day and during that time, do something that you genuinely love doing. This half-hour should be dedicated to you entirely.

Spend Quality Time with Your Partner

Spending quality time with your partner may become difficult after your baby because both of you will get busy taking care of the baby. However, no one else can give you the emotional support and love that you need except your partner, especially if you have a great bond with your partner. Therefore, it’s essential that you spend quality time with your significant other. Even watching a movie with your partner by your side will help lower the effects of post-partum depression.

Spend Some Time Outdoors

Going out of your house and just standing outside your 4-walled space can make you feel instantly better. Try to spend at least 15 to 20 minutes outside every day, soaking the heat of the sun. Not only is this great for your mental health but your vitamin D levels will also increase this way and you need vitamin D especially if you’re breastfeeding.

Get Help with the Baby

Like I said earlier, dealing with the newborn baby can become overwhelming and tiring, no matter how much you love the baby. Therefore, it’s best to get some help with your baby. You can hire someone to help you with the baby or you can ask a close relative or friend to stay over at your place for a while in order to help you out!

If you experience any signs of post-partum depression, then try the activities that are discussed above! These activities greatly help in alleviating post-partum depression. However, if you have extremely severe post-partum depression where you’re getting suicidal thoughts, then you should consult your doctor as soon as possible.

That being said, just don’t stress too much and give yourself time to relax!

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