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Home › Articles › Considering Pregnancy › Motherhood and Mental Health

Motherhood and Mental Health

Finding a Balance Between Mental Health Issues and Parenthood

By Shel Franco

Pages:  1  2  3  

The simplest daily activities can cause worry and strain. "I let go of my financial control of things and many of my day-to-day concerns," says Nicole Mitchell, of Abilene, Texas, who suffers from chronic major depression with severe anxiety disorder. "My husband took everything in hand, and I simply worried about myself and the baby."

  • Do not leave your doctor out of the equation. Discuss your desires to be a mother with a supportive medical professional.

    • What to Expect
    No one, not even your doctor, can tell you how well you will handle the stressors of motherhood. Six months after the birth of her son, Perry became suicidal and was hospitalized for five weeks.

    "I began having the full-fledged panic attacks," she says. "I thought, at times, I was going to die. I couldn't breathe, my heart pounded, I saw spots and then I began having flashbacks and hearing voices. I knew I wasn't safe for myself or my children."

    What would she have done differently? Perry says she would have asked for help much sooner.

    On the other hand, Mitchell, who worried a great deal about her mental health during pregnancy, found the entire ordeal to be much easier than she anticipated.

    "At the beginning I was so concerned about my depression that my husband suggested an abortion," she says. "That was not what I wanted, though. I wanted the baby. I had some very bad times, and sometimes I wished that I wasn't pregnant. But in the end, I made it through."

    Remember, even though you cannot predict if you will make it through pregnancy and parenthood with ease, you can stack the odds in your favor.

    In the words of Paul, "As [a woman] learns to take 100 percent loving responsibility for her own feelings, which is the child within her, she learns to be a loving mother to her external children."

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