HEALTH
The Ecology of Baby Blues
Why nature is making you cry
I was one of the lucky ones. Moderately emotional, kind of a weepy mess at times, but I never had the “baby blues” beyond what was considered normal. Still, it was tough — very tough.
Hormonal shifts
Most people know the baby blues are a period of time after a woman delivers a baby where the hormones are all over the place and with it the emotions. This isn’t a conversation about how women experience it or what you should do to fix it — it’s about why. It’s about the big picture surrounding mother-infant bonding.
One of the most fascinating classes I took in college was an animal ecology course. We looked at case studies, in depth, on a wide range of animals doing a wide range of things, including humans. (Mate selection in humans was a particularly interesting study.)
Ecologically speaking, humans are like other mammals with lots of emotions and a higher intellect.
The baby blues are a byproduct of a very natural process. After birthing an infant, the woman’s body produces more hormones — to ensure that bonding with the baby, caring for the baby, and all of those motherly instincts kick in.
It is an abundance of or the sudden shift of these hormones that can take some women on a wild ride. Ecologically speaking, your body is doing what it is supposed to be doing.
The American Pregnancy Association details a list of symptoms you may be experiencing:
- Weepiness or crying for no apparent reason
- Impatience
- Irritability
- Restlessness
- Anxiety
- Fatigue
- Insomnia (even when the baby is sleeping)
- Sadness
- Mood changes
- Poor concentration
These symptoms are occurring because of the natural influx of hormones that your body triggered during the delivery of your baby. These hormones trigger lactation as well.
Some women experience the emotional effects of these changes mildly as I did while others experience them more severely or longer term. This can result in postpartum depression or other complications.
Predisposition for depression may be a factor in how severely some women experience symptoms and for what duration, but there’s no way of knowing for sure how a woman will react to the changes in her body.
The important thing to remember is that your body is doing what it is supposed to — so that your baby survives.
Attachment and nurturing
It is natural. And with all things natural there are exceptions and there are complications that occur for some.
Attachment Theory
Attachment Theory refers to the infant’s ability to form a healthy bond with caregivers (usually parents, namely the mother) in the early stages of life. These attachments form the foundation for their interactions with others throughout their life, their problem-solving capabilities and how they handle complex emotions.
The importance of early infant attachment cannot be overstated. It is at the heart of healthy child development and lays the foundation for relating intimately with others, including spouses and children. It affects parents’ abilities to nurture and to be responsive to their children. The effects of infant attachment are long-term, influencing generations of families.
For the vast majority, the experience of the mother’s care is the first experience of reality. But the demands of modern life and culture are placing new demands on parents. With these demands comes the need for clarity regarding the basic requirements of the newborn and the young infant: what is needed to nurture appropriately? Because attachment is a fundamental theme of social function, it is a central issue in social policy. —Virginia L. Colin, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Infant Attachment: What We Know Now
When attachments go wrong
Healthy attachments are crucial to healthy outcomes in infant rearing — and I know this first hand, having once married a man who’d suffered from Attachment Disorder and narcissism. The interactions between mother and child at the infant stage of his life were distant, and from all accounts rather cold-hearted. The mother had great difficulty connecting with the infant which had a generational effect through the family. Who is to say this attachment issue was not the result of a severe postpartum depression that went untreated?
Most of us have witnessed a dog or cat or other mammal give birth to their litter and then abandon caring for them. This also happens sometimes with humans, but thankfully, it is not the norm. As humans, our hormones kick in to variable degrees just like with other mammals, only we have evolutionary superiority on our side and we naturally love and care for our babies.
We have logic in addition to our physiological responses to our infant — and we have deep emotional love that drives us to nurture our babies. In fact, humans will go against basic survival strategies and suffer great costs to provide for their children, which we do see in the animal world but likely more driven by survival instinct on their part — love on ours.
Survival of our own genetics
In short, our hormonal shifts are crucial to ensure we change our focus to be that of the care and nurturing of the infant, thus creating the attachment bonds necessary for that infant to grow into a healthy, productive, eventually reproductive human being, and our genetics are successfully carried on.
Our parental strategies are far more complex than that of the animal world, but it does not mean that our bodies are exempt from biological responses that can feel very overwhelming. It is hard to feel like we are being the best parent we can be if we’re sobbing in the shower or pacing the floor in a heightened state of worry.
When the baby blues kick in and have you feeling all sorts of crazy, remember that nature herself is ensuring the survival of your infant.
It is little consolation when you are crying into your morning tea having slept for three hours — but at least you know you are not going crazy because you are not cut out for this “mothering” thing.
You are cut out for it — which is why you feel like a weepy mess. You are everything your baby needs and your body is doing its best to ensure you stay focused on your baby. Those hormones ensure you will have a physical, caring, nurturing, protective response to the tiny human now in your care.
Something no one talks about
And if you don’t feel overwhelming love at first glance, that can be a normal thing too but no one wants to talk about it. Sometimes the hormones and the rush of delivery and the exhaustion and then this new person — it’s all, well, a lot.
Some women feel a bit of a “stranger” feeling with their baby and worry they won’t be a good mother.
Don’t blame yourself or doubt your maternal capabilities. Maternal instincts are still inside of you — just the stress of the delivery or maybe your personal medical pain may be a bit much for one body, one mind, to handle at the moment. For some mothers it simply takes a bit longer for the attachment / bonding process to begin.
Spend a little time with that wriggly, wrinkly piece of you and let the nature of motherhood do what it has done since the beginning of humankind.
Christina M. Ward is a well-living, parenting, and mental health blogger from North Carolina. She received her Bachelor of Science with honors from Catawba College. She’s also a published poet. You can follow her on social media.
