What New Moms Need in the Fourth-Trimester
Becoming a mom is the most vulnerable thing in the world. No amount of classes or experience watching other people’s kids can prepare you for the feeling of being responsible for a new life. Now all of the decisions and all of the care for this little being is in you and your partner’s hands. If you are the primary caregiver, as many moms are, it is especially daunting and the stakes seem even higher.
Baby is born and the recommendations begins
I can not tell you how much conflicting advice I received as a new mom. Don’t wake a sleeping baby. Don’t let the baby sleep too long or it won’t sleep at night. You should put more clothes on him. Oh, is he too hot in that thing? You’re holding him too much. Have you tried babywearing? Don’t forget about tummy time! Lay them on their back to sleep. But not too much or they will get a flat head. Is he sleeping through the night yet? When are you going to have another one? And this is just by well-meaning family and friends. If you start to google, things then it only gets worse.
People talk about trusting your “mama intuition” but how is there any room for it with all that noise? How can you know what you think about anything when you are flooded with information from your grandma, the person at the grocery store, or the influencer you follow online?
This is the type of “support” I worry about when people advocate for more postpartum assistance for moms. In theory, more help sounds amazing. Many women feel completely overwhelmed in the first 12 weeks after their baby is born. They go from weekly doctor’s visits to one checkup at 6 weeks, two if you had a c-section. As a pregnant woman, you are treated like a queen by family, friends, and even strangers. After giving birth many women get pushed aside as the attention shifts to the tiny infant.
The Fourth Trimester
The first 12 weeks after a child is born is often referred to as the fourth-trimester as babies transition from life in the womb to life in the real world. Yet, this is not just an important adjustment period for infants, but also for mothers. In this time many women feel left with a body that doesn’t feel like their own. Their breasts are engorged and leaking milk. The extra rolls and stretch marks that didn’t seem to matter much during pregnancy, now seem to be glaring reminders that life will never be the same.
No one mentions the giant pads you must wear due to bleeding that will go on for weeks. They don’t talk about the stitches from tears or having to ice your vagina. People glaze over the hormonal changes that can cause “baby blues” or even postpartum depression and anxiety.
My Postpartum Experience
For me, the postpartum phase was a complete haze of exhaustion. I remember feeling inadequate as I struggled to figure out breastfeeding and mourned my birth experience that didn’t go the way I had envisioned. I remember the anxiety that would flood my body when I woke up in the middle of the night and franticly checked again to see if my son was breathing. I remember feeling a sigh of relief when the sun rose at 5 AM, meaning we had made it through another night.
I remember crying to my husband while watching some movie on Netflix about a road trip, lamenting that we would never travel spontaneously again now that we were tethered to this little human. My husband didn’t quite get it, he had processed those feelings long before my son was born, while I was in the glow of my pregnancy, daydreaming about tiny feet and that lovely baby smell. I remember counting the minutes until someone would come over, needing adult contact, and wanting to feel a part of the outside world again. And then I sadly wished they would leave shortly after they had come, feeling exhausted and wanting my baby back to myself.
The Best Gift for a New Mom
So yes, I did need support in those first few weeks (and the months that followed). The problem is that much of the help that comes postpartum does not actually feel supportive. As a brand new mom, I needed less advice and more care. I needed to be told that I was the person that knew best what my baby needed. I needed to be told that breastfeeding isn’t always ‘natural’ and that’s getting help was okay. I needed to be told that I wouldn’t ruin my child by giving him formula.
I needed to tell my birth story without judgment over and over again and to be told that I wasn’t alone in feeling disappointed. I needed someone to be excited to take a picture of me with my son, instead of just him with every other family member. I needed someone to offer to watch the baby so I could have a break, but to also know I might not be ready and that’s ok too. I needed people to bring food and stay, but not for too long. I need the craziness of the baby blues to be normalized. I needed older moms to tell me their kids eventually sleep through the night and new moms to say their babies weren’t.
Most importantly, I needed to be told I was doing a good job. And that is what I heard the least.
