FTM with bad PPA

[KaiHua]

Hello all,
I’m hoping some Mums out there can help reassure me.

I’m a new Mum and have been diagnosed with anxiety. I do have a mental health nurse assigned to me but the service is so stretched that I don’t know when I’ll next have an appointment. This is after waiting months and months to talk to someone. I struggled with anxiety during pregnancy and wanted to have support put in place before having my baby.

I had family over early on today seeing my 8 week old. My DC was being held by my older DB. My DB was standing, holding DC vertically with bum and back supported but not the head - his hand was flat on DC’s back supporting just under the shoulders. My wee one has a strong neck and good head control so didn’t feel the need to immediately step in about heads being supported. I’ve been working on being relaxed around family and friends holding DC.
Without considering DC’s head and neck, DB jumped in the air thinking DC would enjoy it. Both feet left the ground (maybe a few inches at most) and it was a fairly gentle action. Nothing too aggressive. DC’s head whipped back when they landed. Looked similar to when my wee one decides to suddenly whip their head back or how a baby’s head may jerk back if you come down off a step a bit harder than you should. There were no tears, no screams and zero sign of any long lasting injury. DC has been perfectly normal since - no change in behaviour, feeding, consciousness, etc. Has been smiling, babbling and feeding as normal.

However, I am still really bloody anxious that something terrible has happened. I made the awful mistake of looking at google and have convinced myself DC has shaken baby syndrome - just delayed or with no obvious signs or something. My rational brain is totally unbothered by what happened but my anxiety has left me feeling sick and panicked.

Can an incident like that really cause such a horrible thing to happen? Please someone tell me it can’t.

Are there any other Mums out there that have struggled with anxiety and have any advice?

I’ve been working really hard on reducing my anxiety but sometimes it just takes something small and I’ll worry about it for days. Stupidly I turn to google even though it tends to kick me when I’m down and doesn’t reassure me at all.

It's very very unlikely, especially if no signs since. Babies are very resilient.

I will say something I said to another friend who feels like you and I saw her not say anything when something was clearly fucking bonkers: it is your baby and even though people may dismiss your anxiety, you have the right and DUTY to intervene when something is not right.

In that situation, I would have said "hey you need to support his neck, he's a newborn". If they don't want to do something as basic as that, you take the baby away. Fuck what they think. I would have gone ballistic if someone did that to my newborn.

Its highly unlikely that this will have damaged your baby if there was no reaction from him, or change in behaviour. ❤️

& respectfully, your DB sounds like an idiot, though I'm sure a very sweet one.

I had bad PPA on my first so I know how bad the fixations can get. It's really hard to exit the catastrophising train when you're on it. My therapist told me if something made me feel better, don't feel bad about doing it. So stating clear boundaries, even if other people think they're OTT. My little script was "we don't feel comfortable with X yet, we're still figuring out our path as parents & will let you know if that changes." Or taking baby to the doctor for a check if I felt there was something wrong physically.

There's a huge hormone shift 8 weeks in, so please give yourself grace as you go through this. 💐