Category: Uncategorized

The Postpartum Doula’s Perspective

I am lucky to be the writer and editor for the Postpartum Counseling Center, an organization I support 110%. I support this organization wholeheartedly because I used to work as a postpartum doula. Once a doula, always a doula....

Katie’s Story: Postpartum Anxiety & Depression After Birth Trauma and High Needs Baby

(Story written by and shared with permission of Katie) For 3 years, I have tried to write this story. I have tried to soften it, make it sound polished, make it sound that at the end, it all came...

Amber’s Story: Perinatal Depression Beginning in Pregnancy

I found out I was pregnant with my third child in August 2014. My 2nd had just turned one and I had just gotten married in April of that year. One would think that everything would be great! However,...

Holiday Highs and Lows: Our Wellness Tips

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” So they say. But the long, chaotic ride between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day can also be extremely difficult. During the holidays, there is a tendency to overindulge – we eat...

The Gratitude Game – What are you thankful for?

Gratitude has been shown to increase feelings of happiness and boost emotional and physical health. The Gratitude Game is a fun way to increase your feelings of gratitude for what you have and are happy about. How to Play...

Oral Contraceptives and Postpartum Mood Disorders

There is still much debate in the medical community over whether or not oral contraceptives cause depression or other mood disturbances. The Link Between Birth Control and Depression It seems that the incidents of depression after starting use of...

Shining Bright: Jennifer Silliman

Last spring, Minnesota’s postpartum support community was in full swing with the Daisy Dash 5K and NAMI’s Beyond the Baby Blues conference. This year, the conference featured the groundbreaking feature length documentary film Dark Side of the Full Moon, which explores...

Making Waves: Erica Marlowe

It’s a simple concept — a Facebook page, providing an online community for mothers suffering from Postpartum Anxiety and OCD — making a BIG difference to many individuals who really, more than anything else, need to feel “not so...

Postpartum Recovery: Patience and the Placenta Wound

Woven into many cultures and backed by years of wisdom is the practice of “lying in” after having a baby. In Latin cultures this womblike “baby moon” is called la cuarentena—a literal, yet nonabrasive quarantine. In China and Korea,...

Superfoods for Perinatal Wellbeing

Perinatal mood disorders are near epidemic levels in our modern culture. The apparent rise is due to many factors: better screening brings bigger numbers, fertility struggles are increasing and contributing to mood disorders, families are more geographically fractured than...

Filling the Empty Arms: Pregnancy After Loss

We recently discussed the impact of fertility struggle on pregnancy and childbirth—mainly, the increased risk for perinatal mood disorders. A situation that similarly affects the emotional state of the new or expectant parent is pregnancy after loss—be it miscarriage,...

Elation, Freedom, Relief, Sadness, Anxiety: The Weaning Mother

Weaning begins the moment a child takes in calories from a source other than breastmilk. At best, the process takes weeks, months, and sometimes years. Oxytocin and prolactin, the hormones responsible for milk production and letdown in the breastfeeding...