In my 33 years of private practice, I have heard from hundreds of women that they believe their health issues began soon after their child was born. It doesn’t matter if the child was her first, fifth or sixth, or if he or she is now a teenager, adult or woman. The mother still remembers her postpartum symptoms like it was yesterday. Find out more?
The symptoms of postpartum depression can vary greatly between mothers. Some of the more common symptoms are: despondency, despair, fatigue, anxiety, lack of sleep, lack of passion and drive, joint and muscle pains, poor skin, hair, and nails, digestive problems, bladder issues, heart disease and trouble breathing. When a woman reveals symptoms she has been experiencing for years, she can feel confused, frustrated and even embarrassed. Her doctor may not have acknowledged or comforted her after she shared her observations. She may have found that any attempt to link the birth of a child with these symptoms was met with skepticism, or even ignored. She can’t help but feel that her health declined because of that birth.
Her observations are valid and have merit. Most mainstream doctors don’t take into account that the baby’s entire body is made up of nutrients from its mother. The placenta is responsible for supplying the mother’s blood with nutrients that are used to form the baby’s brain and eyes, as well as its muscles, bones, glands, nervous system, skin, tissues, and fluids.
Mother Nature prioritizes the development of her baby over the body of the mother. During the postpartum phase, all mothers must replenish their nutritional and energy reserves. They may end up wondering for the rest of their life why they don’t feel the same after the birth.
In addition, the energy required to care for a baby can deplete a mother’s nutritional reserves. This is especially true if she has been breastfeeding or sleep-deprived. The need to replenish the nutritional components in blood becomes even more important if a woman loses a lot of blood during childbirth. Women who have undergone a Cesarean also need to replenish their nutrient reserves. Not only did they become mothers but they had to undergo major surgery. Women who have lost a lot of blood in the birthing process, but who do not replenish essential nutrients, may experience lightheadedness, throbbing headaches and extreme fatigue. They might also suffer from anxiety and depression.
New mothers are also stressed by the demands of caring for their partner and other children, as well as returning to work. Women and the people they care for have been taking these responsibilities for granted for millennia. They need high-quality nutrition to meet all of their needs. Due to soil depletion, our food supplies only contain half of the nutrients they did in the 1940s. It is very difficult, and even impossible, for a woman to replenish all the nutrients her body donated in order to create her baby’s organs solely by eating the food that she consumes. Eating “junk” food that is highly processed and refined further depletes essential nutrients, increasing the need for postnatal nutrition.
Nutrients are essential to every physiologic process of the body. It is important to replenish postpartum nutritional reserves immediately after birth, and for 24 months afterwards. Failure to do so can lead to chronic health issues that last decades.