Mothers Need Nests Too: Tools for Battling PPD & Anxiety
A few days ago I was reading a release by BC Mental Health on the best practice guidelines for caring for mental health disorders in the perinatal period and came across an acronym I fell in love with immediately: NEST_S. It connects directly with the self-care so beneficial for women (humans, really) all the time, but it can be so hard for women when they are learning how to care for a newborn while their body and hormones recover from pregnancy and childbirth. We can remember a nest pretty easily, though, right? ;)
Here's the acronym: Nutrition
Exercise
Sleep & Rest
Time for Self
Support
With nutrition, we don't need to think about gourmet meals. We need to make sure we are staying hydrated and eating things that are good for us. This means grabbing a piece of fruit instead of a chocolate bar, or baking chicken instead of a frozen pizza (been there, done that). It means making simple recipes like healthy soups or opting for a salad (loaded with filling toppings like avocados, boiled eggs, sunflower seeds...) instead of scarfing down a bag of chips.
And with exercise, sure, it would be awesome to have a wonderful gym routine in place... but the important thing is to just start moving. Take a walk with your baby in a stroller or, or ask a support person (we'll get to that!) to hold him while you walk or hit the treadmill (once you've been cleared for more vigorous activity). You can do counter push ups or modified jumping jacks in the kitchen while waiting for your chicken to bake. ;)
I don't need to tell you how important sleep is! That's probably one of the primary radical changes of having a newborn in the house. It's as if we have to relearn sleep with a baby in the house, and it's even more like we are cramming for a test on this new knowledge. Every baby and situation is so different, so it's hard to give universal advice, but I've noticed some generalities: moms are sometimes afraid to take naps. Don't be. If you have other children in the house, we'll talk about how to make napping time available in the support section. But embrace naps. Make sure there aren't things distracting you from sleep at night: maybe you need to turn your phone off, maybe you need to stop watching a certain show if it's keeping you up later... sometimes the sleep thing is a day to day work in progress, but it is so important that it's also okay to get up in the morning and think, "okay, how can I map out a plan for good sleep today?"
So a popular post on our InstaGram page has to do with the old saying, "sleep when the baby sleeps," (ironic after the last paragraph, I know). But sometimes we really do need time for who we are apart from a baby. Time for self might feel tight in the early days, but it is possible. Maybe it’s simply reading books that soothe us during a nursing session... maybe it's handing the baby to a support person and writing in a journal or engaging in a hobby that we love. You can build exercise into time for self: listening to your favorite music while taking a walk, for instance.
And support! Support helps make all of this possible! Ensure that you will have healthy support even before the baby is born. Can your partner be available to help with meals and baby care? Do you have extended family in the area that will be of help? Meet with postpartum doulas and ask them what services they offer and how they can help you build your NEST after birth. Think about what will be more challenging for you and plan accordingly: if it's nutrition, for instance, start using grocery curbside & delivery services, while pregnant. If it's exercise, visit some of the walking tracks ahead of time. Think strategically about how to take care of yourself just as much post-natally as prenatally.
We tend to think of nesting only with end of pregnancy busy-ness, but hopefully this acronym helps us take that word into the postpartum days in healthy ways. PPD can be scary and maybe you need to address it with your medical provider, but these acronym letters are an amazing place to start.