Pregnant and feeling blue: 5 tips to help
Pregnant and feeling blue? Whether it’s a passing feeling, or more of a grey cloud you can’t quite shake, here are 5 tips to help:
Pregnancy brings with it a whole rainbow of emotions. But when the focus is so often on the excitement, the celebration, the daydreaming of what they will look like and constant questioning from friends about baby names, some of the other emotions and feelings can get a bit overlooked.
We all have grey days, low days and overwhelmed days, but how do you navigate them in pregnancy? As a Psychotherapist and a mum of three, I want to share five tips with you that I think will help make the rollercoaster ride of emotions that can come with pregnancy that little smoother.
1 – Validate your emotions
As women, we so often put a huge amount of pressure on ourselves to feel a certain way in pregnancy. Maybe it’s the reams of smiling women we scroll past on social media feeds, rubbing bumps and planning nurseries. Maybe it’s the fact that your journey to pregnancy has been a bumpy one, or that pregnancy is great, but the juggle is overwhelming!
It’s almost as if when the blue line appears, certain feelings suddenly become out of bounds.
I shouldn’t be feeling rubbish, when I’m so grateful to be pregnant
I shouldn’t be finding this overwhelming when I’m lucky to be growing this baby
I shouldn’t share that I’m finding this tough, when others have it harder
The fact of the matter is, your feelings are valid. It’s so easy to compare your situation to someone else’s and determine that you should sweep the feelings of overwhelm under the rug and be grateful. Gratitude is amazing, and a tool I encourage you to use to help your mental health, but it should be used to bring perspective and balance, not to beat yourself over the backside with for feeling what you feel.
One thing I do often, is remind myself of the word ‘AND’. A simple word that can be such a powerful tool in validating emotion. This turns the above list of statements into:
I am feeling rubbish AND grateful
I am finding this overwhelming AND I feel lucky
I am finding this tough AND I’m feeling compassion towards those who are in difficult situations
Let this tip help you validate your emotions. The more we sweep them under the carpet, the lumpier the carpet becomes. Emotions often grow in the shadows, and by naming them, acknowledging them and speaking about them, they are able to rise like the waves of the labour contraction. Then they can peak and subside.
2 - Fight the anxiety
Anxiety can fuel low mood, and due to hormones and other factors, can feel more prevalent in pregnancy. Pregnancy contains so many new experiences, sensations and emotions to navigate.
I can’t count the number of times I researched random symptoms and sensations throughout pregnancy. I browsed forums and articles hoping to have my buzzing mind calmed, yet the outcome was generally the exact opposite.
With such a huge variety of information at our fingertips, it’s no wonder that the rare or the tragic events and outcomes suddenly feel like almost certainties. Limit where you get your information from. Seek those you trust, over consulting forums and rushing to Dr Google. Knowledge can be power, but not when you’re bombarded by it.
Now, whilst you can’t control the anxious thoughts that pop into your head, you can gain confidence in controlling what you do with them, and how much you entertain them.
Next time you experience an anxious thought, see it as a tiny black and white, 2-D image. It’s often an unpleasant one, but because it grabs our attention, our brain seeks to turn this 2D image into a full on 4D technicolour movie experience. I find counting backwards from 100 in 3’s a really helpful way to prevent my mind from embellishing the anxious thought.
Then I ground myself in the present moment, using a mantra such as ‘you are safe now. That was just a thought, this is real life’. I set my feet on the floor and feel the fabric of my clothes under my fingertips.
If you find that your body is feeling heightened and anxious, now is the perfect time to practice that hypnobirthing breath! Get your Freya app out and allow it to calm your nervous system as you calm your breath. This literally switches off your physical stress response, telling your body you are safe. It’s an incredibly powerful tool for life, not just for pregnancy and labour.
Practice these tools when you don’t need them, so that they feel almost instinctive when you do! Before bed is the perfect time as it will help you calm your mind to sleep (before your bladder calls, again!).
Anxiety can feel like a bit of a runaway train. It gains momentum as it continues down the hill. The more aware you become of that first anxious thought, the more chance you’ll have of halting its tracks.
3 - Keep talking
In many ways, it’s like we’ve never been so connected. Many of us connect with thousands of people a day. Be it through reading social media posts, half chats in the high-street, to sending a quick text.
The thing is, whilst it certainly passes the time and gives us the feeling of not being alone in some way (be it physically or in our minds), these are little micro connections that simply can’t take the place of a deep and meaningful chat with an old friend, or the nurturing of a new relationship with someone you’ve met who’s at the same stage of pregnancy as you.
Being open with others is like a muscle that needs to be strengthened. Not everyone will say the right thing and it’s so easy then to shut down and take a vow of silence where pregnancy emotions are concerned, but try again. You don’t have to tell everyone everything, but I strongly recommend nurturing 2-3 relationships with people who know a little more than the perfunctory ‘I’m okay’. The more people who know the reality behind the scenes of your smile, the more support you’ll have to reach for when you’re feeling low.
Feel free to gently ease into those conversations if it’s new or uncomfortable. Perhaps a friend drops you a message to ask how you are, and instead of the usual ‘fine thanks’ go-to, you nudge your comfort zone and say ‘you know what? I’m finding things a bit hard today’. See how they respond. If they are kind and supportive, challenge yourself to share a little more next time. Not everyone will understand how you feel, but I promise you that many will! It might be that you find comfort and gain confidence in sharing in the PBC forums.
4 - Recognise that your needs change every day
So often, I recognise myself criticising my lack of energy, or the fact that I’m finding something hard that last week felt a breeze. It’s so helpful to remind yourself that you have different resources available to you every day, pregnant or not! Regardless of whether your bump feels like it’s growing at snail’s pace, there are a huge number of systems internally that are consistently firing on all cylinders, so now, more than ever, it’s important to recognise that you’re a human with ever-changing needs and resources, not a machine!
From the quality of sleep you’ve had, or how hydrated you are, to the last exchange you had with your partner before they left for work, all of these things impact how you feel.
Go easy on yourself. It’s unkind to expect yourself to feel, react and cope with things in the same way all the time. Your needs for rest change each day too. Listen to your body and consider what you might need. Whilst you may be yearning for a day on the sofa but have to be sitting at your desk, how else might you introduce more rest into the day? Perhaps an earlier night, or to shun the dinner recipe for a freezer meal so that you can reclaim those moments you’d spend in the kitchen, and spend them on the sofa instead!
When your baby is in your arms rather than your belly, you’re going to be monitoring their needs constantly! Are they hungry, tired, over stimulated? Do they need a nap, a feed, a hug? It’s so easy for your own needs to fall by the wayside when you have a baby, yet your needs are just as valid and valuable. I’d encourage you to get into the habit now, of checking in with yourself and finding a way to meet that need (even if it’s only a small way). Ask yourself what you need, and how you feel. Just that simple act of noting and acting on thirst or tiredness, is a way of respecting and being kind to yourself, which in turn boosts self-esteem.
What if the cloud isn’t passing?
Pregnancy can sure bring with it a mixture of emotions and hormones, nausea, disrupted sleep and other physical symptoms. All of these things naturally take a toll on your mood and how you feel as you face the day.
Take a moment to consider what normal loosely looks like for you. When you’re feeling yourself, what is your routine? Who do you speak to at times of worry? Do you shower or bath each day? What makes you laugh or smile?
Knowing what ‘normal’ generally looks like for you is helpful. Whilst it’s expected that at times, you’ll find yourself deviating from your baseline of norm as tiredness hits and pregnancy symptoms niggle (just as we do in times of stress or illness), if those little deviations become…less temporary, it may be a nod to get some support.
If you’re wondering what to do if a series of grey moments have turned into a calendar of grey weeks, there are diagnostic tools to help determine when low moods cross the line into a diagnosis of antenatal depression. I’ll list some of the symptoms below, but before you skip ahead, I want to say this –
You are worthy of support regardless of how many marks you score on a checklist. If you find yourself questioning whether you need some input, please seek it. The more people are aware of how you’re feeling, the more they can check in on support you through any bumps in the road.
If you’re considering taking that valuable step in getting support, here are some things that may be helpful.
Here are some symptoms to look out for:
Feeling any of the below for a period of more than 2 weeks?
Feeling down most of the time
Loss of confidence and/or self-esteem
Feeling restless
Feeling irritable
Feeling tearful
Seeking solitude
Struggling to find motivation and/or concentration
Finding it hard to make decisions
Not able to enjoy the things you usually do
Thoughts of self-harm or suicide
Support:
If you feel like you want to harm yourself, please tell some as soon as possible. It’s not a reflection on your ability as a mother, or how grateful you are for your pregnancy. 1 in 10 pregnant women experience antenatal depression, so you are not alone. Anyone can get depression in pregnancy (although there are certain risk factors such as having a history of depression or anxiety, lack of support, grief etc) It can be a culmination of factors that come to a head and find us feeling overwhelmed and hopeless. Where there is help, there is hope.
Call: Your GP or midwife. And also ensure that people who care about you know how you are feeling so that they can support you too.
Tommy’s website: https://www.tommys.org/pregnancy-information/im-pregnant/mental-wellbeing/depression-pregnancy
NCT website: https://www.nct.org.uk/pregnancy/how-you-might-be-feeling/antenatal-or-prenatal-depression-signs-symptoms-and-support
NHS support: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/mental-health-helplines/
Written by Anna Mathur - Psychotherapist, Writer & Speaker