Noticing First Symptoms
Onset of Mental Health Problems
When speaking about when problems started, women described periods of time when they felt unwell along with unusual thoughts or behaviours before or after their pregnancy. They often thought it might be because of reasons such as the baby blues, the stresses related to the big changes they were going through or the lack of sleep. It therefore took some time before women or others around them realized they needed to seek help. Other women, especially those experiencing mental health problems before their pregnancy, talked about taking precautionary measures such as seeking professional support and creating a support system around them to try to prepare for what might come next.
Geneviève started experiencing panic attacks and nightmares after her medical leave led to conflicts with her employer.
Transcript
Intervieweuse: Le médecin, c’était le médecin de famille ou… C’était ma gynécologue. Ma gynécologue puis c’était… En plus, c’est ma gynécologue en fertilité parce que justement j’avais des problèmes, donc, elle, pour elle, c’était déjà une très grande victoire que je sois tombée enceinte. Donc elle ne voulait absolument pas […]
A few weeks after the birth of her second child, Erin1 began experiencing symptoms that were different from those she had with her first.
Transcript
So you stay for five days and five nights. So they can monitor you. A psychiatrist comes in and talks to you, asks you how you’re doing. And I was surprisingly good, partially because, having been through exactly almost the same thing with my son – she was like an […]
For the first three months after giving birth, Michelle2 felt great, but then she began experiencing sleep issues and her mental health started to decline.
Transcript
She’s the oldest. She’s the oldest so yeah. She’s currently seven so it was once she was yeah, when she was three years old. She was born in September – or three months old sorry. Prior to this, prior to that I felt great. I was happy with this new […]
Some people noticed sudden changes in their sleep, started hearing voices or having intrusive thoughts. For others, the symptoms developed slowly and were typically first mistaken for baby blues. It often took a while for these women to realize that their condition was different because it lasted much longer. Some described their symptoms building up to a ‘tipping point’, where things got worse, and they realized then that they needed help.
About four months after birth, Joan began hearing things at night and sensed that something was wrong but couldn't yet identify that it was a problem.
Transcript
Interviewer: So you said – at what point after your son’s birth did your own mental health start to really decline? So I think it was, when I noticed that there was a problem it was around like 3.5, four months. And I started hearing things at night because I […]
Erin2 didn't realize she had postpartum depression until she reached a "tipping" point when her baby was seven months old.
Transcript
I did a little bit. Like through online forums and things like that. Like I had a mom group that I luckily had through a website. And it was all just moms who had babies born in the same month as my son. But they were international which was really […]
Recognizing the Symptoms
Many women found it hard to recognize that their signs and symptoms were related to mental health issues. For example, Susan, didn’t know what signs to look for making it hard to understand what was happening to her. Amanda1 felt different from how she thought she would feel. Some noticed some unusual behaviours, like Louise, who spent the whole day in the car. Others stopped sleeping or eating. Many women felt anxious or depressed during pregnancy and expected that these feelings would go away once their baby was born. A very common experience was that people often didn’t realize that their experiences were related to something more serious than the baby blues. Genna described it like this: “I knew it wasn’t the normal me, but I didn’t know that it wasn’t the normal postpartum.”
After a traumatic birth and having experienced two previous losses, Karmin believed she just needed some time to cope with the baby blues.
Transcript
So the moment I first suspected something was wrong with my mental health, I started to experience some anxiety at the beginning of my pregnancy as it was my third pregnancy and I had two losses prior, I wouldn’t say that I had, like an anxiety disorder at that time. […]
Christine describes how she gradually understood that she was experiencing depression, not the baby blues.
Transcript
I didn’t learn how to cope with it. And probably that would have been a much better thing to be looking at. But that’s most of the time, what I was looking at was, was that kind of thing. But then when I had my son and I was looking […]
For those who had already experienced mental health problems before or during a previous pregnancy, the experience of new or additional symptoms were still a challenge. They described how their experience felt different this time, often due to added responsibilities, financial stress, fatigue, hormonal changes and challenges around feeding and caring for the baby.
Karmin felt that postpartum depression was different from the depressions she had experienced before.
Transcript
I can try to describe it. I kind of feel like – I kind of feel like with the postpartum depression, like, I know that there’s, like, a lot of hormones going on. And I kind of felt like – I don’t know how to describe it but I felt […]
It felt like no one was asking the right questions to understand how Kaitlyn was feeling.
Transcript
Like I remember filling out the Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale and like there was no issue on there with the questions that were asked. But I feel like I guess I could have been a little bit more forthcoming with that, and a little more flexible, but I just really […]
Some women experienced mental health problems in combination with other health issues.
Alice managed symptoms of chronic fatigue syndrome and then faced additional mental health challenges during her pregnancy.
Transcript
Oui, c’est mon histoire. Donc je suis tombée enceinte, je pense fin février, début mars de l’année 2012. Et le premier trimestre de ma grossesse a été relativement calme et paisible au niveau des émotions. Par contre, j’étais très fatiguée, très faible, mais il paraît que c’est normal pendant le […]
Experiencing a traumatic birth or previous losses could also make it hard to distinguish between mental health issues and feelings related to these traumatic events. For example, Amanda1’s anxiety was triggered after the traumatic birth of her third baby when things went ‘haywire’ that night.
Having lost her twins previously Amanda1 found it hard to tell where grief ended and where depression began.
Transcript
But uh she needed it and um and the first night um because of the hypoglycemia they wanted to watch her a little bit closer. So um so I’m in my room in the hospital in this um a private room and they had her they just put her out […]
You can read more about peoples’ experiences in the topic pages on symptoms and getting a diagnoses and treatment.