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Today we are talking about something that terrifies a lot of new moms into silence, and that is postpartum OCD and intrusive thoughts.

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And if you've ever had a scary, disturbing thought about your baby or wondered, oh my God, am I a monster, this episode is for you and I'm gonna tell you what's normal, what's not, when to get help, and why these thoughts don't mean what you think they mean.

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Hey mama, it's Trish.

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I am a labor nurse of 16 years and a mom of seven, and I need to tell you something that might make you cry with relief, intrusive thoughts do not make you a bad mom.

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So if you've ever had thoughts like, what if I drop the baby?

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What if I hurt the baby?

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What if something terrible happens and it's my fault?

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And sometimes these thoughts.

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Present themselves as almost like you feel like you're going to throw the baby or drop the baby, or you know, drop the V down the stairs or something.

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It doesn't actually present itself as like, what if, but it's actually very, very normal and you are not alone, you're not broken, and you're not dangerous.

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By the end of this episode, we're going to understand what postpartum OCD is, how it's different from postpartum depression, and exactly what to do if you think you have it.

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Okay, so first of all, you might notice that I have a bed in my office.

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That's because my mom is here for the holidays and we put her downstairs in the office.

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But also I've got my Christmas tree, which I love.

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Okay, so we're gonna be talking about something that is so common and so.

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Overwhelming.

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And when I had my babies, I didn't even know this was a thing, but I 100% had both postpartum OCD and intrusive thoughts.

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So let's start talking about what is postpartum OCD?

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So postpartum, OCD is a perinatal mood disorder that has two parts.

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Obsession compulsions.

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Obsessions are intrusive, unwanted, disturbing thoughts or mental images that pop, pop into your head uninvited.

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Usually they're about harm coming to your baby.

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Compulsions are the repetitive behaviors you do to try to reduce the anxiety that those thoughts create, like you think you have to do it, and here's what your obsessions might look like.

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Repetitive scary thoughts about your baby being harmed, vivid mental images of something terrible happening.

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Intrusive thoughts like what if I drop the baby?

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Or what if the baby stops breathing?

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It may even be replaying traumatic birth moments on a loop.

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The moment you thought you or your baby might die, or you felt outta control, or you felt like no one was listening to you, or maybe that moment where something went wrong when you went to your doctor's office and found out plans had changed, you may also have fears of contamination or germs hurting your baby.

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And here's what compulsions look like.

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Checking on the baby constantly.

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Have you ever seen terms of endearment?

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It is an old school movie, but it is so freaking good and it shows Shirley McLean going into the baby's nursery, checking a million times, then getting into the crib to actually see is the baby breathing.

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So.

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Compulsive thoughts could be, or compulsive actions Could be checking on your baby constantly.

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Is she breathing?

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Is the blanket too close to your face?

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Hopefully blanket's not in the bed with her waking the baby up to make sure they're okay, or like really touching them to see are they breathing.

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It could also be excessive cleaning and sterilizing everything multiple times, washing hands until they're raw, arranging things in a specific order or doing tasks in a specific sequence or number of sequences.

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Avoiding certain rooms or objects or situations like you won't go near the stairs.

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Won't use knives, won't be alone with the baby.

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Asking for reassurance over and over is the baby okay?

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Are you sure?

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Can you check again?

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Counting, tapping or repeating phrases to keep the baby safe.

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And I know this is a really heavy episode, but I want you guys to be aware of these things 'cause people just don't stink and talk about it enough.

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Okay?

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So compulsions are your brain's attempt to neutralize the terrifying, obsessive thought.

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But here's the problem.

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The more you do the compulsion, the more your brain believes the threat is real.

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So the cycle just keeps getting worse.

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So the key difference between postpartum OCD and postpartum psychosis with OCD, the thoughts horrify you.

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You don't want them, they scare you.

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You never act on them.

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You know they're irrational, but you just can't stop them with psychosis.

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The thoughts feel real and rational.

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They make sense to you.

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You're not.

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Afraid of them.

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There's like this sense of belief and you may think the thoughts are messages or that you need to act on them if you're terrified of your thoughts and doing repetitive behaviors to keep your baby safe, most likely OCD.

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What postpartum acts OCD actually looks like.

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So let me.

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Lay out some examples from what I've heard from my students and from just, research.

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So there's the checker.

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The checker puts the baby down for an m and you check to make sure she's breathing.

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You leave the room two minutes later, you're back checking again and again and again.

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You check 15 times an hour and you know it's excessive, but you just can't stop the thought.

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What if she's not breathing?

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It won't leave your mind.

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So example two is the cleaner.

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You're terrified of germs.

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You wash your hands before every time you touch her, you sterilize your bottle three times.

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You won't let anyone hold the baby unless they've showered.

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You're cleaning constantly and it's taking over your life.

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But the thought, what if the baby gets sick and dies, compels every action.

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The avoider, you won't go near the stairs with your baby 'cause you have intrusive images of dropping him.

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You won't use knives when the baby's in the room.

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You won't be alone with the baby 'cause you're terrified that you might hurt the baby.

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The avoidance is taking over your life.

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The other example would be like the reassurance seeker.

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You ask your partner 10 times a day, is the baby okay?

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Are you sure?

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Can you check her?

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Do you think she's breathing?

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Even after they reassure you, the anxiety comes back within minutes and you ask again.

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Then there's the birth trauma, intrusive thoughts or replay, or you keep replaying the moment during birth when you.

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Your baby was harmed, or you were harmed or, or whatever, where things went outta control and you see it over and over and to cope, you've developed rituals.

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You have to check the baby in a specific order, breathing, then temperature, then diaper, or you believe if you don't do a certain number of things or in a certain.

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Order something bad will happen.

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And all of these are just examples of postpartum OCDI Okay, so here is what's happening in your brain.

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After you have a baby, your brain's number one job is to keep the baby alive, so it goes into this hypervigilant protection mode.

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When you combine that with.

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Sleep deprivation and all these hormones, it really makes you feel like you need to constantly scan your environment for danger, and when your brain identifies a potential threat, stairs, germs, window, sids, whatever, it starts sending you an alarm, danger, protect your baby in a brain without OCD happening, you think, okay, I am gonna be careful on the stairs, and you carefully go down the stairs, you move on.

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But in a brain with OCD, the alarm gets stuck.

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The thought loops, anxiety spikes, and your brain says.

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Do something to make this feeling go away.

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And that's when you add in your compulsion.

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You check the baby, you clean, you avoid, you ask for reassurance, and for a moment the anxiety drops because your brain says, good, that worked baby safe.

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But here's the trap.

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The compulsion teaches your brain that threat was real.

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So the next time the thought comes, the alarm is even louder and you need to do the compulsion again.

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It, it's not like, ah, I should do that.

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It's like I have to do it.

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That is the OCD cycle.

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Obsessive thought.

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Anxiety spikes, compulsion, temporary relief, obsessive thought returns stronger, and the compulsions feel like they're keeping your baby safe, but they're actually feeding the OCD cycle.

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Now I wanna talk about another layer, which is birth trauma.

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If your birth was traumatic, if it felt out of control, and I don't care what people say.

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Healthy baby, healthy mom, who cares?

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That is not true.

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It's how you perceive it, how you felt if you felt outta control, if you felt like no one was listening, if there was a potential danger where you or baby might be harmed if you were ignored or dismissed, if something went wrong, your brain might replay those moments on a loop.

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You're trying to sleep and suddenly you're back in that moment and these thoughts just intrude.

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You know that moment where you had to have oxygen or the team was rushing in, or your baby's heart rate dropped or or you were screaming and no one was listening.

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Or that moment where you just felt like I'm going to die.

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This is your brain trying to process trauma.

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But when it loops obsessively and you develop compulsive behaviors to try to manage the anxiety from those memories, that is postpartum OCD layered in with birth trauma.

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And you may develop rituals around the baby to try to prevent the trauma from happening again.

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You might check obsessively because during the birth you felt out of control and now you're trying to control and.

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I wanna talk about like some things that can happen.

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You know, you have the intrusive thought, you're horrified by it.

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You do your compulsion to make the anxiety go away.

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It works temporarily, but the thought comes back, and then you do the compulsion again.

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We're in that cycle and you start to realize, oh my gosh, I'm doing it constantly.

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And then you start to spiral with.

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What is wrong with me?

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Why can't I stop?

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And you feel shame?

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And here's the biggest mistake, you don't tell anyone because you're like, they're gonna think I'm nuts and lock me up.

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That only feeds the OCD and makes it worse.

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Shame feeds the OCD.

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Silence feeds the OCD.

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The antidote is actually opposite.

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How to solve it is to speak it out loud to someone safe and get proper treatment, and that's not everyone.

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Okay, so number one, tell someone safe if a partner, a friend, your ob, your therapist, say it out loud.

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I am having these repetitive thoughts about harm.

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Coming to my baby.

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I am having to do these weird behaviors to try to manage it, and I can't stop.

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I can't stop.

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I need help.

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So one of the things that you can do is ask your provider for perinatal mood disorder screening.

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I'm not a huge, huge fan of them, but it is a screening.

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But you don't even have to be screened.

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Just say, Hey, I need help.

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I'm having OCD.

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Intrusive thoughts, compulsive behaviors.

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Many providers only screen for depression.

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And Miss OCD.

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Entirely.

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The other thing I would recommend is finding a perinatal mental health specialist who treats OCD.

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Not all therapists understand it, so you need someone who's trained in perinatal mental health and ideally someone who does exposure and response prevention.

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Therapy, which is the gold standard for O-C-D-E-R-P, teaches you how to sit with anxiety without doing the compulsion.

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It's retraining your brain.

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We're gonna link to some information like postpartum.net or the International Ooc D Foundation, which is iocd f.org to find a provider.

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We're also gonna link to someone I really know and trust.

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Her name is Alicia and we're gonna link to her in the show notes as well.

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She has some online, help.

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The other thing is considering medication, you are not wrong or bad or doing anything, you're not a failure if you need medication.

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A lot of my members in Calm Mama Society need help.

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SSRIs like Zoloft, Prozac, Luvox are safe, effective, and often needed, you can breastfeed on most of them.

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The medication helps regulate the serotonin in your brain so that those urges quiet down and medication.

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Again, I wanna say this, it's not weakness.

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Don't let anyone shame you for that.

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If you have birth trauma, there are different trauma specific therapies like EMDR, which is eye movement, desensitation and reprocessing.

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I had to think on that one.

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Or trauma focused CBT can help your brain reprocess that traumatic memory so it stops looping.

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You can also.

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Practice self-compassion, girl, give yourself grace.

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You are not your thoughts.

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You are not your compulsions.

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You are a good mom with a treatable medical condition.

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Your brain is trying to protect your baby.

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It's just doing it in a way that's kind of backfiring on you.

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So treatment.

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Matters, and it works and it helps.

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The other thing that I would tell you not to do, don't isolate.

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This is why I love our postpartum side of Call Mama Society, because these moms have such freedom to where they can speak it and they decrease the shame, which shame only increases the OCD.

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The more you hide, the bigger it gets.

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Don't keep doing the compulsions and hope it goes away.

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The compulsions feed the monster.

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You need treatment to break the cycle.

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Speak about it like be bold, like this is what's gonna help other mothers.

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Don't avoid your baby.

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And also don't avoid situations that trigger their thoughts.

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Now, I would say with caution, get help.

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Okay?

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Avoidance makes your fear bigger, but I want you to do that with help.

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You know, don't try to stop them on your own.

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OCD treatment requires specific strategies, and you need help from someone who understands and don't wait for it to go away on it.

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Its own.

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It usually does not resolve without treatment.

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It needs intervention now.

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There are some things that you can do, but I am not an expert in this, but I know that speaking truth out loud helps.

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So try this until you get in to get someone out loud, say, this is OCD.

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My baby's safe.

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I don't need to do the compulsion.

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It will pass.

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Now, that's probably not gonna help, but there are some things that you can do, and I just want you to know that we love you.

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We see you.

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We do not think that you are some horrible mom.

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We think you're a normal mom who's experiencing a medical condition, and if you're a partner or a family member, if you love someone who is doing these things, who's checking constantly, cleaning excessively, asking for reassurance or avoiding situations they may have postpartum OCDs.

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So.

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Be gentle with them and be loving, but be clear and say, Hey, I've noticed these things.

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I am thinking it might be postpartum OCD, and I want to be with you, and I wanna be a part of getting you help because you're so important to me.

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Don't be like the baby's fine.

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Oh my gosh, stop.

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You're being ridiculous.

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Stop checking.

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That is only gonna drive more shame.

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So.

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just wanna give you a word of caution because the tricky part is you don't wanna really enable the compulsions, but you also don't wanna shame her.

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If that makes sense.

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Like be reassuring and she needs to get help, period.

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If you're listening this and you're thinking, oh my gosh, this might be me, I want you to know that we adore you.

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We love each and every one of you so much.

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You're so important to us, and I don't want you to feel shame.

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So if this episode resonated with you, hit subscribe, leave a review, share it with another mom.

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Who's about to have a baby or is in postpartum who may need to hear this.

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I want you to get help.

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You deserve help.

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You deserve peace.

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You deserve to hold your baby.

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Without these compulsions taking over your life, you're stuck in a loop and you can retrain your brain.

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I promise you can heal.

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As always, this has been my honor to be here with you guys.

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I will see you again next week.

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Bye for now.