Are You Suffering From
Postnatal Depletion? By Maureen Frost
Exhaustion, the feeling of being overwhelmed, struggling to shower and keep up with your beauty routine—these are all common things new mothers may deal with after giving birth. But what if these feelings don’t go away and are coupled with even more symptoms that you never had before baby, thus debilitating you as a new mom? It’s possible that postnatal depletion is to blame. Dr. Oscar Serrallach, a Doctor of Functional Medicine with a special interest in postnatal wellbeing, coined this term after numerous women came to his practice suffering from these symptoms. While prenatal care is of the utmost importance, once the baby is born, most of the focus turns to them, leaving the mother vulnerable to a lack of support and proper treatment. What’s even more concerning, postnatal depletion has the ability to stick with a new mom for multiple years. In Dr. Serrallach’s new book, The Postnatal Depletion Cure: A Complete Guide to Rebuilding Your Health and Reclaiming Your Energy for Mothers of Newborns, Toddlers, and Young Children (excerpted here), he offers up the essential roadmap for regaining your health.
27 kiwi Summer 2018
What Exactly is Postnatal Depletion? Postnatal depletion is a constellation of symptoms affecting all spheres of a mother’s life after she gives birth. These symptoms arise from physiological issues, hormonal changes, and interruption of the circadian day/night rhythm of her sleep cycle, layered with psychological, mental, and emotional components. Think of your body as a plastic bag full of water. The more water in the bag, the better you feel and the better you are able to cope. Each day of pregnancy, the birth, each sleepless night, each long day of breastfeeding, is like putting tiny pinpricks in the plastic bag. You can repair these holes, but it takes a little time. When there are only a few sticks of the pin, only a very small amount of water escapes the bag. The trouble, though, is when the holes start to come more quickly than you can repair them. Such is the body after childbirth; when there are too many stressors and not enough time to recover, your levels become depleted. Depending on the severity of depletion, the postnatal period can last for years after the baby is born—you can
