The increased alertness that comes with the rushing endorphins and catecholomines helps us to tend to our newborns and, perhaps, maybe to fend off a predator (or errant family visitor as the case may be).īut when this high continues, it can be a red flag. We need this mobilization of energy stores and it serves a purpose. Moms continue to be, more often than not, alert and euphoric in the hours that follow. As a midwife and birth attendant, it’s always amazing to see a mother who is so fatigued at 8cm that she is sure she can’t go on, get a burst of energy to push out her baby with such strength and energy.
The postpartum high allows us to be vigilant to care for our vulnerable newborns. The inability to sleep for the first 12 hours after giving birth is normal. I have seen women struggle and I also have seen great outcomes when mothers got immediate support and intervention to break the cycle. Each story has its own profile but commonly, there is pain and inflammation, and a lost opportunity for a block of sleep on that first night. Was my lost sleep a symptom or a cause? I’m sharing my own story, but I’ve seen this unfold for so many women under similar or different circumstances. Or the events of the birth, my infection, and the first days may have set me up to be vulnerable. My postpartum insomnia may have been an early indicator of a hormone imbalance that would be a part of the postpartum mood puzzle. Feeling a little like I was losing my mind? A bit. Getting anxious about things like my baby not having a bowel movement? Definitely. Was I caring for and connecting with my baby? Quite sweetly. I wouldn’t have described myself as struggling with mood at that time, but certainly, loss of sleep for so many days was having a significant impact on my thought processes. I would later turn to treatment for what was a developing depression over the next months. I made all the mistakes I tell other moms not to. Unfortunately, there were other stressors for me that year, including putting my house on the market when my daughter was 6 weeks old.
I got treatment for my postpartum complications and thanks to the help of my doulas and midwives, recovered for the most part. From that night on, I was able to prioritize blocks of nighttime sleep even as I exclusively nursed my baby. On that fourth day, my dear friend and Birthways practitioner Elizabeth came to give me a bedside massage and aromatherapy treatment and sent me off to sleep immediately afterward for what would be the first chunk of normal sleep since earlier that week when labor had begun. I was suffering from postpartum insomnia. I was experiencing a postpartum high gone wrong. It was at that point that I realized I had slept 4 hours in as many days. It was a bit of an overwhelming hallucinatory image – not unlike the way an image lingers on a monitor if it was frozen too long. By the third day and night and the fourth, I was seeing my hungry baby’s rooting mouth whenever I tried to close my eyes. I remember feeling that I had moments where my brain would just shut down if someone was talking to me. I called in a colleague to help me resolve it. And despite being a lactation consultant, I too had nipple pain and damage. I remember that somewhere around day 3 or 4, I was in a fair amount of pain with postpartum discomforts (and would later learn I had some complications and an infection), and recall having no appetite. I was existing in this heightened state of emotion, awareness, and in a state of timelessness. I was filled with gratitude for my team of support, and felt this overwhelming surge of emotion about how hard it had been, how strong I had been, how transformed I felt. The second night I was feeling more emotionally raw. The next day, I couldn’t stop staring at her and indeed, didn’t close my eyes much at all. I was elated – riding that initial postpartum high, and didn’t mind that she was so taken with nursing. That first afternoon and the first night, she nursed nearly continuously. I was over the moon to meet my daughter! I recall napping for maybe an hour or so after she was able to nurse for the first time and when I finally had some quiet time without disruption. She was born about 36 hours after my first organized contractions.
My daughter was born after a labor that had some twists and turns like most labors do.
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