Have You Got New Mum Fear?

When small worries become full-on wobbles, thinking ‘suck it up’ just won’t cut it. Here’s how you can tackle that post-baby anxiety

When Nisha K had her first panic attack, she was driving along the highway with her five-week-old son smiling in his car seat behind her. Her palms started sweating, her pulse was racing and she thought she was going to faint. Hyperventilating and terrified of having an accident, she stopped by the side of the road. She was suddenly overwhelmed with an irrational fear of everything – the sun was too bright, the world too enormous. The weight of responsibility she’d felt after having her son seemed to be crushing her and she felt utterly helpless.

Since having her baby, she’d felt more vulnerable than ever. The world was filled with fear and she had begun to worry irrationally about anything and everything that could happen to her child. To her relief, she discovered she wasn’t the only woman who felt this way. A recent study found a third of new mums feel they don’t have what it takes to be a parent because of the amount they worry, while twothirds confess to making regular checks throughout the night to see if their baby is still breathing.

Lara D’Souza, 27, from Secunderabad, who’s mum to Charles, three, and Ricky, one, noticed a change in her behaviour after she had a baby. “Anxiety started for me quite suddenly, just after the birth of Charles. Panicky thoughts were taking over my life and I couldn’t talk about it to family or friends, because I believed they’d think I was crazy,” she says.

THE NEW NORMAL