Hi, I'm Nicky from Little Ones.
And today, I'm gonna be talking to Laura Forlani,
who is a Clinical Psychologist from Melbourne.
And she is the Director of
Your Mind Matters Psychology Services.
She has a passion for working with clients
who are struggling with starting a family,
and also helping parents adjust to life
once they have a baby.
I will link her website and Facebook group below,
and also a couple of Facebook support groups
that she runs in case you're interested.
Today, we're gonna be talking about
maternal and paternal mental health,
about postnatal depression and anxiety,
and most importantly how sleep
and sleep deprivation affects our mental and
physical health as parents.
Welcome Laura, it's really good to have you with us.
Laura: Thank you so much for having me, it's a pleasure.
Nicky: So let's just kick this off with a really easy one,
can you just tell me about your own journey into motherhood,
what did you find easy,
what was challenging becoming a mother?
Laura: So, I became a mother about 11 months ago,
and I can't believe I'm already planning his first birthday.
It took us a bit over a year to get through the
first trimester and to have a healthy pregnancy
so we were just over the moon and we spent so long
just focusing on pregnancy that when bub
actually came along, it was a bit of a reality shock.
I knew it was gonna be difficult, and I knew that
there will be sleep deprivation involved.
I didn't really get the full gamuts of the
first month, how difficult it can be.
What was easy though, is how much I loved him.
I work with a lot of women suffering
from postnatal depression and I know it can hit anyone.
and so, I did have in the back of my mind that, you know,
I may have trouble bonding with him, I'm not immune,
I may not instantly fall in love with him like
everyone tells you that you do.
That's actually not the case, a lot of women don't.
So I was really grateful when he came along, and
all those emotions just came, and I loved him.
And so in the middle of the night,
when he's crying again, for the 5th time cause he wants milk
you kind of go, Uh, really?
And then you just look at this tiny little perfect human
and it's just all worth it.
So, the sleep deprivation was really really heard initially
but loving him was really easy and kind of compensated
for that. But also juggling a business so,
that was kind of tricky as well.
Nicky: I reckon, so how did that, let's just talk about
the initial tricky period at the start and
the sleep deprivation 'cause that's obviously something
that every new parent goes through,
like nobody is immune to that either,
there's just no way around it, you know.
It's foggy and messy and devastating and you just have to,
it's like a right of passage.
How did that affect your experience of motherhood?
Like your initial leap into motherhood.
Laura: It was really full on, I felt really overwhelmed.
There is so much to learn when you have a baby
and then when you, you know, he kind of needed to feed
every two to three hours. So let's say every three hours,
it'll take about 45 minutes, and then by the time
I fell asleep, it was an hour.
So you're sleeping in these small chunks of time
and you wake up the next morning and you don't feel rested
and everything is just harder.
It's harder to do the dishes. It's harder to do the washing.
It's harder to cook and feed yourself,
everything is just harder and more stressful
and there's also so much to learn
and your baby is doing all these things,
and you're wondering is this normal?
Is this not normal? So there's was a lot of self doubt.
There was a lot of guilt if I felt that
I wasn't doing something that I "should" have been doing.
So, it was a big big adjustment.
Even though, I work with a lot of parents
and I did a lot of research.
It was still all new to me, what you expect and
the actuality of it is so different.
And at the start, you do lose literally hours per night
because bub needs you.
Nicky: Yeah, so you obviously work in mental health,
so, and do a lot of work with mothers as well.
Do you see a strong link between continued sleep deprivation
and a decline in mental health and function and
relationships and things like that
with ongoing sleep deprivation?
Laura: Absolutely, there is a plethora of research about
sleep deprivation and depression in particular, but also
some anxiety. So we know that,
If you are chronically sleep deprived,
which they consider to be less than seven hours a night,
and that goes on for a while,
which is pretty normal for mothers
And fathers.
Cause I'm sure anyone in the house kind of hears it.
There's a tenfold risk of developing symptoms of depression
and we also know that people who do suffer from depression
either report sleep loss or an excessive need to sleep.
So, there's really really strong link that's been
really well researched on depression and sleep deprivation
and sometimes they don't know which one actually comes first
so, that's why when we see parents who are
chronically sleep deprived, we are really mindful that
there's a huge chance that there's a drop in mood,
that they're gonna feel really tired,
that they're going to feel overwhelmed.
And it's completely understandable.
If you had a night, where you had no sleep, baby or no baby
the feeling of being tired is really unpleasant,
you can't think straight,
how you process things is a lot slower.
We don't make as many good decisions,
our problem solving abilities goes out the window.
And of course we just feel really heavy and low and unhappy.
I don't know anyone who is tired and happy.
I've never had anyone like "How are you feeling?"
"I'm exhausted, but happy!"
I'm exhausted, it's tiring.
Everybody can relate to that.
Nicky: And so, do you see in your work specifically,
that sleep deprivation on those levels is
a contributing factor to postnatal depression or anxiety
and those kind of maternal mental health issues that we see?
Laura: Absolutely, so postnatal depression is really just
depression that is due to having a baby.
So it's not the baby blues that normally resolves
within a couple of days. Where as postnatal depression
it's about a month after bub is here.
It's lasting for a couple weeks,
and we're also seeing that chronic sleep deprivation,
if it kind of transitions into postnatal depression
which is really common, it's about one in seven women
who give birth get postnatal depression.
They have trouble bonding with their baby.
It's not just "I'm tired", it's "I feel like a bad mother,
I'm struggling to bond, I'm feeling angry,
I'm feeling overwhelmed".
There's lots of guilt involved,
It's not just simply, "I'm tired".
And so given the strong link between depression and
anxiety and poor sleep.
It's really not surprising that when we throw a baby
in the mix, and we get a surge of sleep deprivation,
that we also see increases in depression,
particularly amongst mothers.
And they're saying, the research is about one in 10
fathers as well, experience some low moods once
the baby is introduced.
So if you've got two parents struggling, of course,
that also affects relationships which
can exacerbate the difficulty within the household
and the adjustment. And it is a huge adjustment.
Nicky: Are you seeing, that these statistics are rising?
And more and more mothers experiencing these
feelings of depression and anxiety, do you think?
Laura: I don't know If the statistics are rising,
but I know that women are coming forward and
reporting it a lot more.
The maternal health nurses are doing a fantastic job
at detecting when women are struggling.
It would be great if they were also working with
the fathers a bit more as well.
They're really good at detecting it and
referring them to psychologists early and
it's no longer taboo for the generation of women who
are having babies now, to see a psychologist.
It's fairly well accepted and so we are having
a lot more women put their hands up and say,
"hey, I'm struggling"
but they're often suffering in silence and
it's only to the maternal health nurse or
to their best friend, or it's to another mother.
So we're trying to do a lot of awareness
around that it is really common
and it responds really well to treatment.
Postnatal depression is something that is really
well-managed if you have a GP and a psychologist
and you're willing to do the work.
And we are all about working with moms
there is no shame in it, it's a privilege to support
women and fathers on their journey.
And it's becoming more mainstream to see a psychologist.
So, highly treatable,
really recommend that women get some support.
Nicky: I do feel, and I've talked to quite a few people,
who also feel that these days,
we do try and suck it up
we have that whole,
"I'm a woman, and I should be able to do this, you know,
just, how hard can it be?" It's seen as a failure to
admit that we are not coping,
do you think that then plays into increased feelings
of depression and anxiety.
We're sort of creating this cycle of putting pressure on
ourselves and we don't feel that we succeeding and
then we feel that's it's more of a failure to ask for help.
How is that affecting our mental health?
Laura: So there is, obviously, there is a huge movement now
of women becoming the heads of companies,
and really educated, and entering in the workforce
and becoming professionals and it's really encouraging
today's society to multitask.
It's not just, you know, you just taking care of the baby
and that's it. Women these days are
Mothers or even stay at home dads,
they taking care of the baby but they're also
doing the shopping , the cleaning, the cooking,
they're checking emails, answering phones.
A lot of women are running their businesses from home,
and that's celebrated to be doing a million things
and to say "how are you doing it?" And they're like,
"Oh, I just don't sleep"
or they're multitasking, they've got a--
I have to admit, I'm actually guilty of this,
because I do run a business in the early days,
I would have my BabyBjorn on, bub strapped in,
I've got a stand-up desk, and I'd be responding to emails
while bouncing him like to keep him asleep
And making phone calls, and walking and walking just so
I can get my work done,
even when I was in the hospital,
I was, you know, got a baby two days old.
But I run a business and I have to respond to things
so there was a lot of pressure and
I absolutely felt like a failure and that
I couldn't do it all and you know what,
it was too much, looking back now.
And this is the unfortunate thing,
we often look back on what we did, we're like,
"Why did I do that, Why didn't I delegate,
why didn't I ask for help,
why didn't I put some boundaries in place?"
So, I'm absolutely guilty of it.
And I can completely relate to the pressure to
do everything and be everything and succeed
and when you can't do it all, and you feel like a failure
even though, it's such an unrealistic expectation.
Nicky: Yeah, and then, I agree. We see it all the time.
Actually, you know, parents who are just
"I need to this and this and this and this and
I'm not sleeping". And I always think,
if you are not taking care of your nutrition,
and your sleep, that underpins everything else.
Like, you can't do all of those things if
you're not taking care of yourself as well.
And I think as mothers, we forget that
we are just as important as our child.
Laura: We do forget, absolutely.
Nicky: It's one thing to keep them alive,
but we also have to keep ourselves alive.
And that doesn't mean like I'm a physical shell of
my former self, it means I'm healthy mentally and physically
Laura: We're meant to spend 2/3, sorry,
a third of life sleeping. So if we are messing
a third of our life, of course the other 2/3 are gonna be
impacted as well, and we find that with
chronic sleep deprivation, not only do we see
the concentration difficulties, and the tiredness
and irritability and the mood changes
but then it does start to affect our physical health.
Chronic sleep deprivation is really associated,
there's a strong link between depression and anxiety,
heart disease, diabetes, stroke, obesity.
So it really does long term start to affect your
physical health as well.
And it takes more than one good night of sleep to fix it,
it's consistently taking care of yourself.
Nicky: Is it selfish to want better sleep yourself
when you have a baby?
Laura: Uh uh.. no.
I can see how mothers think it's selfish,
and again it's this thing of the baby comes first,
but you can't pour from an empty cup.
So, yes, if you can survive a few nights with
a little bit less sleep to take care of baby, fine.
But then you need to take care of yourself as well.
You need to say to someone,
"hey, I need a good night's sleep."
Just one good night sleep can be a week,
can be all you need, just to feel rejuvinated
and like yourself again.
And your baby will survive
you will thank yourself for it.
'cause you'll be a new person the next day.
You'll be more alert, you have more energy
you'll be happier and you're baby is gonna love that.
So, I would say, I know it's gonna feel selfish,
because you're actually doing something for yourself
which your not used to
when you're caring for a newborn
But you really need to do it.
It's not self indulgent, it's self-care.
Otherwise, you're gonna fall to pieces
Nicky: And actually, a biological necessity.
Laura: I mean, how long can you go for without sleeping?
You're not gonna be the best version of yourself
if you're not sleeping.