Happy Friday Mama, I do go on a little rant coming up here, just to give you a bit of a heads up. But you know what anger and emotion also bring about change, and Mama’s Daily Dose is… there aren’t enough resources for moms. Let’s get moving before we get interrupted.
There are so many resources out there for babies and kids…everything, like you can teach her baby sign language, swimming lessons, music lessons, gymnastics, baby guitar, I don’t even know. But there are millions of resources out there for our kids. But we often leave moms out of those resources. There are all these books, social media posts, courses, and all these things on how to raise the most well adjusted baby. But they leave the mom out of the equation, everything is focused on the baby. But when the mom makes changes, that reflects on the baby, as well.
And this is reflected in scientific research. It’s awesome that they’re doing more studies on postpartum depression, anxiety, OCD, and other mood disorders. But if you look at a lot of them, most of them are on the effects on the baby. I was trying to look up a lot of scholarly articles on postpartum anxiety, and all the research and studies that they’ve done on them. And the majority of them that are done are done on the impact to the child. So with a mom having anxiety, what is then, the impact on the child. Instead of the mom having anxiety, what’s the impact on her and her child, because once again, when the mom makes changes, that goes down to the children as well.
And even more when we’re talking about mental health, most of mom’s mental health is screened by your child’s pediatrician, which I think is mind blowing, we get one six week thing, okay, you’re good, you’re good, go have sex, go workout. Alright, that’s it. And all the rest of them you do at your child’s pediatrician, and I don’t know about you, but I’m not super comfortable talking about like, my anxiety or my mood and things with my child’s pediatrician, I’m they’re worried about my child and worried about my child’s health, not about my mental health att that time.
When you become a mom, your focus shifts, it shifts to your children. But we also need to be looking out for the moms. Because if we look out for the moms, if you take care of yourself as a mom, then you can better take care of your children. If we take better care of moms as a society, then all the kids are going to be better taken care of, we won’t need to do all those studies on the impact of anxiety on kids, because we’re focusing on the impact of anxiety on moms, so that they can have the resources and the help that they need for them. Because they need to heal to in order for their kids to heal. And if we’re just focusing on the impact on the kids and healing the kids, we’re missing the main player in this. And that’s moms. And that’s moms mental health.
Mama, your action today is to make a small change with mom’s mental health. I know I’ve said this before, we’re not going to have this huge societal, medical system change overnight. But we can help one another. And check in with another mom today. That emotional mental check in, EMC. Just be like “hey, how’s it going? Like, REALLY… How is it going?” And just be there to listen to another mom. Or if you need that, voice it to someone else because they could be standing there and being like, “Me too. I know. This is really hard.”
And if you feel so inclined to help a little more, either monetarily or with your time. Check out Postpartum Support International and Climb Out of the Darkness. Climb Out of the Darkness is a walk that you do with other moms and families to bring awareness to perinatal mood challenges and help end the stigma for moms mental health and help moms to get support, bring them together and share stories. We may not change how many visits that we get postpartum, right away or our access to mental health resources. But we can start making those small changes that will create something big. Something is always more than nothing. And have a great day free of mama guilt because you deserve it.
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Meghan Q Barrett is Mom Success Coach and Connector who helps mamas create a life they love as “mom” AND an individual without the mom guilt. She connects mamas from all around the world so you can share your stories in a safe, supportive space.
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