In this episode we hear from the lovely Christine Ou, who is a registered nurse, a researcher, and a PhD candidate and Public Scholar in the School of Nursing at UBC. She is also a parent with lived experience with PPD and postpartum anger, and one of our amazing volunteers! In in this episode she shares her own postpartum story with us, and also outlines some evidence based strategies for getting a better nights sleep.
We talk about:
- The factors that contributed to her PPD and PPA
- Returning to work early – and the challenges that brought
- Not knowing she was depressed because what she felt/presented with was mostly anger and rage
- The importance of friends and community support
- The other things that helped with her recovery
- NESTS – nutrition, exercise, stress management, time to yourself, and support
- What inspired her to go back and get her PhD
- The importance of sleep in postpartum mood disorders
- What postpartum sleep typically looks like
- Evidence based strategies for improving sleep
- The importance of partner support
- What partners can do to support better sleep for the whole family
- Getting into a good routine
- Sleep arrangements
- Controlled comforting
- The assumptions we make about what our nighttime role ‘should’ be
- Strategies for nighttime anxiety and insomnia
- CBT strategies for nighttime anxiety
- Observing thoughts but not believing them
- How I dealt with insomnia
- Postpartum anger and rage and the association with PPD
- Understanding that anger usually arises from an unmet need
