I just gave birth and I feel sad. What's happening to me?
The delivery is over, we have our son or daughter in our arms, everything has come out to order and around us everyone is happy and only sees reasons for celebration. However, we are not so clear about it. We are tired, exhausted, we feel somewhat sad and nobody understands what is happening to us. But is normal?
What happens to us has many explanations.
After delivery begins a period of cambios, Learning. A necessary time to get to know, adapt and learn to take care of our baby. It is a time when changes occur in all senses. It is a vulnerable period, of emotional instability and physical fragility in which fears appear, insecurities, doubts related to baby care, about our parenting skills… We have to take time to get to know each other and adapt to the change of family that we have just experienced. And you have to understand that a change in our family model It is quite stressful in any situation, how can it not be to welcome our child who needs us for everything!
On the other hand, until now we have noticed the baby inside us, we communicate with him through his movements, caressing him through our skin, talking to him, singing to him ... And that feeling of feeling our son inside us is something incomparable that now that has already been born we miss a lot, so much that sometimes the feeling of pérdida It is so intense that it may be difficult for us to recognize in that baby that we now hold our child in our arms.
Sometimes also our expectations They are too unreal and we dream of a perfect birth and an ideal baby, but the delivery may not have been so perfect and that tells us to understand each other with the baby, adapt to a new being who depends for everything on us, whose needs limit our life and mark our day to day.
Nor can we forget that we have gone through a pregnancy and childbirth, we are tired and we will surely have anemia, so it is normal not to have much vitality.
My advice
- Understand that you have just gone through a pregnancy and childbirth, it is logical that you are tired and in poor shape, rest what you can and do not demand to be one "Supermom". Ask for help
- Delegation In other people, all the tasks that you do not have to do, breastfeeding the baby is already demanding enough.
- Control the visitsPossibly you will not be in a position to organize them but your partner will surely be. Everyone will want to go to meet the newborn and sometimes, more than a pleasant company they become a reason for fatigue and added stress.
- Take care of yourself. Eat properly and don't stop making any food.
- Drink plenty of fluids, you should be fine hydrated to cope with breastfeeding.
- Spend time a day for your personal care, if you look good you will be putting a grain of sand so that your mood improves sooner.
- Dress up and go for a walk As soon as you can, the open air and the sun help us to find ourselves better.
- Share the tasks and care of the baby with your partner, it is important that both of you become aware of the change in your way of life that the arrival of the baby implies and the father will be your great ally for breeding.
- Pact With your partner a free time for each of you, it is important that both of you can rest from the feeling of being "mom" or "dad" full time. You can organize a "free afternoon" a week for each one, or just half an hour each day to read a book or surf the net ...
- Consult with your midwife and your doctor to evaluate your condition and the needs to give you a vitamin supplement.
- Take time to adapt to the new situation, it is normal that, at times, you feel overwhelmed by circumstances.
- Sign up for some postpartum courseIn your Health Center you will find infant massage workshops, postpartum recovery courses or breastfeeding support groups. In all of them you will find other moms who will understand your emotional state and your problems very well because something similar happens to them.
- Try to ignore the Reviews that everyone around you will give you, you will see that everyone seems to know what to do at all times, but they are only their experiences and opinions and they do not have to serve you, when you have a problem better consult with a specialist .
- And remember that the state of puerperal sadness It is normal after childbirth, but it should not be very long-lasting, in a few days you will begin to notice little by little that the episodes of dejection are less and less and you begin to have more moments of tranquility, if not, consult your doctor, no let it pass.