Postpartum: Navigating the changes of body and mind

At 39, Sarah gave birth to her first child, a baby boy weighing 2.8 kilograms. His arrival turned her world upside down. “It felt like I’d been hit by a truck,” she admits. “You experience overwhelming joy, but you are also faced with unexpected challenges, such as prolonged pain and limited mobility after a C-section. It feels as though your body no longer belongs to you. You want to hold your baby, but you don’t quite know how. At the same time, I was full of positive energy. I could breastfeed my boy.”

Several months after giving birth, Sarah found herself increasingly overwhelmed by anxiety. “I have a constant fear for my son,” she confides. “I can’t stop having dark thoughts. Even simple things, like drinking coffee, makes me anxious. I’m afraid I might spill it on him. Thinking of children in Gaza brings me to tears. When I hear bad news, like the Crans-Montana fire, I worry about what might happen to him when he grows up. These are clear signs that my anxiety has become overwhelming. Motherhood, meant to be a miracle, can feel like carrying the constant burden of anxiety. The stress is so intense that sometimes you ever wonder if it would have been better not to have a child at all.”

A profound upheaval of body and mind

Like many new mothers, Sarah is experiencing postpartum depression. “Childbirth brings a profound upheaval to both body and mind,” explains Nadine Maalouf, clinical psychologist in the maternity unit at Hôtel-Dieu de France and psychoanalyst (ALDEP-IPA). “After such a major change and depending on a woman’s personal history and emotional makeup, almost all new mothers go through the baby blues,” she continues. “This is caused by fatigue, change, new responsibilities, and the presence – or absence – of support from those around her. If these symptoms are poorly addressed, meaning the woman feels unsupported and her anxieties are not heard, the baby blues can last longer than two weeks. At that point, it is considered postpartum depression.”

“This condition is more common in women who have previously experienced depression, whether during adolescence or at any other point in their lives before having a baby,” Ms. Maalouf adds. “If left untreated, without therapy, medical follow-up or medication, it can persist from one pregnancy to the next.”

This was Sarah’s experience, marked by a deep sense of loneliness.

Everyone was happy to see me arrive with the baby, but no one was taking care of me or acknowledging the effort it took to travel with everything.

“My husband also often tried to minimize my anxiety, like he always had, instead of understanding how I felt. After a major argument and a long discussion in which I asked for his help, things began to change. From the very beginning, he fully embraced his role as a father. Now, he is more attentive, making sure I don’t reach mental exhaustion.”

Learning to take care of oneself

To overcome this situation, it is essential, according to Ms. Maalouf, that the mother “give herself permission to slow down and recover her strength.” “Her body needs time to heal,” she explains. “She also needs to organize her time, especially during the first month, in order to adjust to her baby’s rhythm. With time, she will better understand his cries and learn how to interpret them. But most importantly, she needs to pamper herself, by dedicating some time to herself during which the baby will be cared for by someone she trusts.”

That’s what Sarah tries to do. “From time to time, I take some breaks. I leave my baby with my mom or mother-in-law, and occasionally I take the whole weekend off while my husband takes care of him. Ultimately, I learned that everyone could give love to my boy in different ways, and that is healthy.”

Sarah explains that motherhood taught her she cannot control everything, and that it is important to trust her maternal instinct, something she was only able to do once she returned to her own home, forty days after giving birth, having stayed with her mother during the postpartum period. She also emphasizes the importance of treating the baby as a person in his own right. “His crying becomes a means of communication,” she says. “I pay attention to his fatigue. I also understood that he can blend into my space and that I don’t have to put my life on hold for him, even though it is important to create a space just for him. My routine doesn’t stop because of this child.”

No time for diet

What about the body that has changed, one the mother no longer recognizes? Nicole Maftoum, dietician and a young mother herself, stresses that the postpartum period “is a new phase of life, where you have to learn everything, but above all, it is essential to be kind to oneself.” “During this period, you have to listen to your body and to your needs,” she adds. Drawing on her own experience, she insists: “It’s not the right time to go on a diet. Everything will fall back into place at the right time, and you will regain your shape. But take it easy.”

Her advice is to increase daily caloric intake by 500 calories during the breastfeeding period and to eat well: focus on proteins, dairy products, fiber, and healthy fats, while limiting carbohydrates. “The weight gained will eventually come off,” Ms. Maftoum insists. “What matters most is to enjoy motherhood and not be harsh on yourself or your body.”