The Director of Pacific Post Partum Support Society, Sheila Duffy, talks about how self-care is often vital to recovery from PPD/A and looks different for each person.
Transcript:
So everybody is going to be a little bit different in what, what is it that they need but some of the things that, that do make a difference is those kinds of practical support, so getting a break, sleep, finding some way to get more sleep, really, really important. Sort of basic self-care needs, you know, being able to make sure that you, you’re eating and having enough water during the day and.
And then, and then emotional support, like who are you talking to? Some people feel like, you know, they’ve lost all of their social contacts because they were all their friends were at work and so really finding a place where they can feel safe to really talk about some of what they’re experiencing is really important.
But, but I think what’s, the most important thing is for each person to kind of figure out what is self-care for them. And sometimes, you know, self-care for one person might be doing the dishes and getting the kitchen clean and for somebody else that would not be self-care, taking a break and flipping through a magazine would be self-care. So figuring that out is, is individual.
And then, and then some of the other things are just making sure that you do talk to your doctor and sort of ruling out some of the physical things like getting your thyroid checked and your blood levels checked. And for some people also it’s really important to look at medication and medication might be, you know, a really important piece to getting better. So, you know, that’s one of the things that we do at Pacific Post Partum is really look at all of those things with the mum so she can start to discover and figure out, you know, what are the, the key pieces in her journey to get better.
