Pregnancy & Postpartum Therapy

Pregnancy doesn’t always feel glowing or peaceful. You might find yourself consumed with worry about the baby’s health, your body, or whether you’re prepared — or quietly grieving that you don’t feel as excited as you “should.” For some women, sadness, irritability, or disconnection show up during pregnancy, bringing guilt and confusion.

These experiences are common and treatable, even if no one talks about them openly.

After baby arrives, the pressure to feel grateful and joyful can make anxiety or depression feel especially isolating. You may notice persistent worry, irritability, tearfulness, difficulty sleeping even when the baby sleeps, or a heavy sense of overwhelm that doesn’t lift.

For many women, symptoms intensify when hormones shift — including after weaning or if the breastfeeding journey is stressful, shortened, or not what you hoped for.

The good news is that postpartum mood symptoms are highly treatable and, in most cases, improve significantly as hormones stabilize and the nervous system receives the right support.

Postpartum OCD can feel frightening and confusing, especially for loving, attentive mothers. You may experience intrusive thoughts or images about harm coming to your baby, followed by intense fear, checking behaviors, mental rituals, or avoidance meant to prevent something terrible from happening.

These thoughts are ego-dystonic — meaning they go against who you are — and they are far more common than most women realize.

With specialized treatment like ERP and I-CBT, postpartum OCD is highly treatable, and symptoms often ease as hormonal fluctuations settle and effective tools are put in place.

If your birth experience felt frightening, chaotic, painful, or dismissive, it can linger long after your body has healed. You may replay parts of the experience, avoid medical settings, or feel grief for the birth you hoped for.

Even when everyone says, “At least the baby is healthy,” your nervous system may still feel unsettled. Birth trauma is real, and it deserves space and repair.

Motherhood is not just a role change — it is a developmental transition known as matrescence, the psychological, hormonal, and relational shift into becoming a mother. Like adolescence, matrescence can feel disorienting: you may grieve parts of who you were, question your competence, or struggle to reconcile your professional, relational, and maternal identities.

Loving your child deeply and missing your former independence can exist at the same time. Therapy creates space to honor this transition, helping you integrate the many evolving parts of yourself rather than feeling lost within them.

A baby changes the dynamic between partners in ways few people prepare for. The mental load can feel uneven, communication may become tense, and intimacy often shifts as exhaustion and responsibility grow.

At the same time, relationships with parents and in-laws may feel more complicated — whether navigating boundaries, differing parenting opinions, or feeling judged rather than supported.

Addressing these shifts early helps protect connection and prevent resentment from taking root.

For women entering motherhood later, or parenting while approaching perimenopause, the layers can feel especially complex. Hormonal changes, career demands, aging parents, shifting energy levels, and body changes may collide all at once.

You may feel out of sync with younger moms or wonder why this stage feels heavier than expected. These transitions deserve nuanced, developmentally informed support.