The Pregnancy and Postpartum Mood Workbook

This book helps you throughout your pregnancy and postpartum/postnatal recovery. By helping you understand what you are feeling, and teaching you empirically validated new skills so you can manage your changing moods, you can work toward feeling better. Becoming a new parent is one of the biggest changes one can face in life. You are experiencing enormous changes biologically, hormonally, and emotionally. Your whole life may seem uprooted. It makes sense that you might be feeling significant mood changes as well. With one out of five mothers and one out of ten partners experiencing depression and anxiety when having a baby, this workbook will remind you that you are not alone. This workbook is written with sleep-deprived new parents in mind, providing helpful information in short, digestible segments. These are intermixed with thought-provoking activities such as brief journaling prompts and suggestions for tangible steps to make small, realistic changes. You can pick it up and put it down, reading it on your timing, without the information becoming overwhelming. The workbook covers the entire range of mood symptoms, from the Baby Blues, to anxiety, depression, bipolar disorder, PTSD, OCD, and more. The Pregnancy and Postpartum Mood Workbook uses inclusive language and content applicable to all new parents. There are chapters uniquely dedicated to building attachment, managing awful thoughts, bringing awareness to your partner's mental health, parenting babies in the NICU or with medical issues, and exploring culture, identity, and mental health. There is also a resource section with a wide array of support available to meet the needs of any parent. Adoptive and single parents, LGBTQ+ and heterosexual parents, as well as clinicians and birth workers will find this book to be an invaluable resource.

Bethany Warren, LCSW, PMH-C, is an experienced psychotherapist certified in EMDR therapy and Perinatal Mental Health. She regularly provides trainings and lectures on women's mental health and trauma. Find her at bethanywarrenlcsw.com and on IG @bethanywarrenlcsw. Beth Creager Berger, Ph.D., is a psychologist with over twenty years of experience specializing in anxiety disorders and Perinatal Mental Health. She frequently lectures to physicians and community groups about PMADs. Find her at drbethberger.com and on IG @bethcreagerbergerphd.

Part 1: Helpful Information-Empowering You With Education 1. How to Get the Most Out of This Workbook 2. What's Going on With Me? Breaking Down the Differences Between Baby Blues and Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders 3. Learning More About Your Moods: No, Seriously, What's Going on With Me? 4. Risk Factors and Screening: Why me, and What Next? Part 2: Building Tangible Skills to Help You Weather the Storm 5. Sleep and Self-care: Tangible Ways to Climb out of the Black Hole 6. Attachment and Bonding: Creating a Secure Foundation With Your Baby While In the Middle of Your Storm 7. Mom Guilt and Other Mind Battles: How to Manage Your Thoughts, Moods, and Behaviors Using Cognitive Behavioral Skills 8. How to Manage Your Really Awful Thoughts: Name Your Dragon to Slay Your Dragon 9. Role Changes, Building Support and Improving Effective Communication Skills: How to Build and Strengthen your Village 10. Mindfulness, Meditation, Relaxation: How to quiet the storm within Part 3: Additional Factors-Aspects of Your Life That Can Impact Your Mood 11. Embracing All of You: How Your Culture and Identity Intersects With Your Mental Health 12: How's Your Partner Doing? (Yes, They Can Struggle Too!) 13: Crying, Low Sex Drive, Irritability and More: How Your Hormonal and Biological Changes Impact Your Emotions 14: A Tough Situation Just Got Tougher: How Parenting a Child With Health Issues or Disabilities Can Impact Your Mood Part 4: What's Next? 15: From Ambivalent to Terrified and Everything In Between: Creating an Empowering Postpartum Plan for the Next Pregnancy 16: So What Now? Treatment Options