A calm connection
BC Womens Health Research Institute
“I was totally spiralling out of control,” Sarah* says.
Today, she looks like a healthy and happy young mother, with her mane of blonde curls and her hip-but-comfy clothing. But shortly after giving birth to her first child, Sarah was seriously worried for her sanity.
“At first I thought it was just normal new mom worries about whether I was doing things right. But it kept getting worse. I was thinking the baby had stopped breathing and I had to keep checking. I knew it was crazy but I couldn’t stop. Then I became convinced I was a horrible mother and that I was actually going to hurt my baby. I felt like I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t sleep. I was having panic attacks,” says Sarah, her fists clenching unconsciously as she recalls the traumatic first months after her son Benjamin was born.
Sarah was experiencing post-partum anxiety. While many people have heard of post-partum depression—the debilitating depression women can experience after giving birth—post-partum anxiety is less well known. But many researchers suspect post-partum anxiety may actually be much more common than post-partum depression.
Their logic is that anxiety disorders are the most common of all psychiatric conditions—more than twice as common as depression. Furthermore, women are much more likely to suffer from an anxiety disorder than men. It follows that post-partum anxiety disorders might be twice as common as post-partum depression—or even more prevalent.
But unfortunately, nobody knows for sure how common post-partum anxiety disorders are. Unlike post-partum depression, which has been extensively researched, there’s been very little scientific study done of post-partum anxiety. As a result, the condition isn’t even “on the radar” for many people, including many health care professionals.
That’s a serious concern for Dr. Nichole Fairbrother, a researcher with the Women’s Health Institute of BC Women’s Hospital and Health Centre. Dr. Fairbrother is a vigorous woman with a cheery grin who specializes in reproductive mental health. She worries that many women could be suffering unnecessarily because post-partum anxiety disorders are so poorly researched.
“All new moms feel anxious, especially first-time moms. But the kinds of anxiety we are talking about cause clinically significant distress or impaired functioning,” she says. “How many women with these disorders are going undetected and untreated?”
Anxiety disorders include painful and debilitating conditions such as panic disorders, obsessive compulsive disorder, social phobia, post-traumatic stress disorder, and agoraphobia. They can not only seriously affect the mother’s health, but they can affect her infant, and the rest of her family, over both the short and long term.
The possible lack of detection of post-partum anxiety is especially frustrating, Dr. Fairbrother says, because “…we have really nice, effective treatments for anxiety, including non-pharmacological treatments.” That means women with post-partum anxiety could likely be helped, even women who want to avoid medication because they are worried about its possible effects on their child.
That’s why Vancouver Foundation donors contributed $50,000 to help fund Dr. Fairbrother’s groundbreaking research into post-partum anxiety. The study aims to find out how common anxiety disorders are in women who are pregnant or who have recently given birth.
“The majority of the studies on anxiety disorders to date have used small sample sizes or questionnaires only, or have looked at some, not all the anxiety disorders. I think it’s safe to say this is the first comprehensive study with a large sample size,” Dr. Fairbrother explains. Dr. Fairbrother believes this “baseline” research will pave the way for the kind of understanding and awareness post-partum depression now has among medical professionals and the general public.
“I felt it was going to be really tough to get researchers going on this issue if we couldn’t say it’s common. This is a foundational piece that provides a backbone rationale for further research,” she says. “It will help get the attention of funders for this issue. And maybe we’ll find that one kind of anxiety disorder is particularly common, and that we should focus in on that. It’ll give us a good idea of where we need to go next.”
Dr. Fairbrother also reports that once she was able to secure funding for the initial research, with the help of Vancouver Foundation, she was then able “to secure a second pot of money to compare women who are experiencing a low risk pregnancy to women who are experiencing a high risk pregnancy, to see whether they have different rates of anxiety disorders ... So we were able to squeeze even more useful information out of our study,” she explains.
Because the study follows women during and after their pregnancies, and because Dr. Fairbrother wanted to work with a large sample size, this study is taking place over several years; it should be complete by late 2011.
Meanwhile, Sarah, the young mother who was suffering from post-partum anxiety, believes she was very lucky, because she was able to get effective help for her condition.
“My husband was really worried about me, and he finally got me to go to the doctor. I didn’t want to admit the kinds of thoughts I was having because I was worried I’d have to be locked up or something, but my doctor was great. She actually knew a fair bit about post-partum anxiety. She told me it didn’t mean I was unfit to be a mom, and that she could probably help me. We tried a few different things, like cognitive behavioural therapy and a bit of medication … things actually shifted pretty quickly. After a few weeks it was a lot better, and after a couple of months I was pretty much back to normal,” Sarah says.
“I can’t tell you how much of a relief it was to have myself back,” Sarah says, starting to blink back tears. “I’m so glad I can be there for Ben, my baby boy, and not miss out on this really important time with him. I really don’t want to think about what would have happened if I didn’t get help, and I wouldn’t want anyone else to go through it if it could be avoided.”
*not her real name.
If you want to find out more about this study, contact the Women's Health Research Institute at 604-875-3459.
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