Moms With Postpartum Depression More Likely To Wake Their Babies
Moms with PPD are more likely to wake their babies unnecessarily.
Sleep. If you’ve got postpartum depression or anxiety, you need it. No matter how many therapy sessions you go to or what kind of medication you may take to treat it, if you’re not getting enough rest it’s nearly impossible to recover from PPD.
Thing is, insomnia is a symptom of postpartum depression. It’s hard to get sleep when you have problems sleeping! Not only that, but now there’s a new study from the University of Pennsylvania that finds that moms with postpartum depression are more likely to wake their babies up in the middle of the night, too.
Researchers watched the behavior of 45 families by installing cameras in nurseries and bedrooms. They found that new moms with depression or anxiety were more likely to respond to every little sound, and to wake their babies up either to feed them or to move them to their own bed even when the babies didn’t need it.
In an interview with Bonnie Rochman of Time, the study’s lead author Douglas Teti said, “… these moms would spend more time with their babies at night, nursing them and lying next to them even when they were not upset, in what Teti calls ‘proactive maternal behavior’ that was not observed in nondepressed moms. Nondepressed moms, on the other hand, only went to their babies in the middle of the night if they were crying.”
Why? Two theories. One is that the mothers’ own anxiety is causing them to be overprotective of their babies. The other is that the mothers themselves find emotional comfort in connecting with their babies by holding them, feeding them and laying with them.
As someone who has experienced postpartum depression, both of those theories make sense to me. I was what my doctor called “hypervigilant,” meaning I couldn’t relax or stop worrying about my baby and my ability to parent. I was continually worried about my little guy’s health. Was he growing enough? Was he eating enough? Was I caring for him properly? This led me to fuss over him a lot more than the average mom might.
At the same time, during a period in my life when I was devastatingly ill with PPD, I often felt comfort in just holding my infant. I preferred letting him sleep on my chest to putting him in the crib, and I got a lot of comfort out of that even though it meant I couldn’t sleep while he was doing it.
This study is important because it may help identify the root cause of later sleep problems in children. Perhaps this in turn will lead to a more proactive plan to identify women who have postpartum depression and develop better treatments and support services to help them.
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I just read this study myself yesterday. One thing to keep in mind about the results though is that these women were videotaped. People change their behavior when they are videotaped. It might mean that the depressed mothers were hypervigilant and having cameras around increased their vigilance resulting in the night wakings. I can’t help but wonder if these results would be there minus the cameras. With that being said, PPD is a real concern and I look at the differences between PPD and baby blues here for anyone who is interested:
http://www.themommypsychologist.com/2012/03/28/is-it-baby-blues-or-postpartum-depression/
Makes sense to me, too. All moms claim to check that their babies “are still breathing”, but I feel that PPD moms mention this type of behavior more often.
Since we are often already awake most of the night when we have PPD and PPA with insomnia, then why not hang out with the baby at each whimper? Sounds sarcastic and crass, but honestly I wonder if I didn’t at least want company while I stared at the walls?
I hear your point about the cameras, but I’ve often observed this happening with people I talk to / email with about sleep stuff. Although to be honest I’ve always been a bit fuzzy about the cause effect (are they extra anxious due to sleep deprivation or does the anxiety result in extra night wakings – presumably the study suggests the latter). Really interesting stuff…
I thin it’s only natural to be awaken by every little sound and movement. I know I did that with both of mine!
This is so interesting. I’ve always said that one thing I’d do differently with my 2nd is not go in there at every little sound. (We’ll see if I manage it when this one comes in the fall.) I definitely think it contributed to my son’s sleep issues (he’s almost 4 and still doesn’t sleep well) as well as my own PPD.
Maybe moms with babies that don’t sleep well are more likely to get PPD. I know my son’s severe sleep issues took a toll on me.