It can be hard to find time to take care of yourself as a new mom. But when you find support for your mental health, you may be more able to enjoy this time in your life, building beautiful memories with your spouse and family. You may feel more able to take on motherhood, too.

Lightfully offers mental health support through our Virtual Partial Hospitalization Program (vPHP). With Lightfully, you can learn more about postpartum mental health support tools.

Identify tools to support yourself

You might begin with building a support team for yourself, which includes you, people close to you and professionals. You can use resources like:

• Self-compassion

Whether you brought your first child into the family or welcomed a little one into a large family, you are in a time of transition. You have been through physical, emotional, mental and relational changes. Feeling challenged right now is understandable. Finding some balance and feeling like yourself again might take time. Be gentle with yourself.

• Family support

Your family might have all of their attention on your new baby right now, but you need to be cared for, too. If anyone has offered specific help, take them up on it — they want to help you. If someone has offered to help out “if you need anything,” let them know what might help. You might find that they are just waiting to step up or giving you space to talk.

• Professional support

Consider this: If you had physical symptoms that were holding you back or causing pain more days than not, you would see a doctor. Likewise, if you have mental, emotional or behavioral symptoms that are affecting you frequently or severely, it may be time to seek professional support. Lightfully offers a vPHP that includes comprehensive support.

• Individual or group treatment

If you join Lightfully’s vPHP, you can see a licensed mental health care provider for therapy every week. Our clinical experts use our Precision Care Model (PCM) to tailor care to your needs, drawing from a variety of therapeutic modalities. You can also participate in group sessions: four hours of group programming are included five days a week in the vPHP. With Lightfully, you get well-rounded support. So does your family, with one family treatment session every two weeks.

• Psychiatric care

Some people with postpartum mental health conditions may find symptom relief with medication. If you have symptoms of a condition that can be helped with medication, like depression, a Lightfully psychiatrist may provide a prescription. They can also manage a prescription initiated by a previous doctor or psychiatrist while taking certain circumstances into account, such as breastfeeding status. Medication management and once-weekly psychiatry appointments are included in the vPHP, as well as risk–benefit counseling and possible coordination with OB-GYN or primary care.

Find out more about Lightfully’s vPHP

Moving through postpartum depression, anxiety or OCD can combine one of the highlights of your life with a low point. Other symptoms, like psychosis, can make it overwhelmingly difficult, especially because postpartum psychosis requires emergency care. Our licensed clinical experts at Lightfully have seen others through what you are experiencing now and can support you through this time.

You can:

• Participate in treatment without leaving home

You don’t have to spend your time driving to treatment, handling paperwork and insurance in an office, attending an appointment, and then driving home. You can use virtual care where you are comfortable, without taking extra time away from your life.

• Keep bonding with your new family member

Some types of mental health treatment, like a PHP provided in person, may require time apart from your baby. With virtual care, you don’t have to disrupt that time. Plus, you might not need to make as many child care arrangements.

• Have a private outlet for your thoughts and feelings

When you have perinatal anxiety, the thoughts and feelings that come up might be hard to share with people you know. A supportive, nonjudgmental professional can be an excellent person to talk to.

• Find coping skills and support in treatment

Therapeutic treatment gives you ways to handle difficult moments like anxiety triggers. You can learn to ride waves of emotion more easily, work through cognitive distortions, soothe yourself or distract yourself. You can learn coping skills from others with conditions like depression in group sessions, too.

Getting support during this time is possible. When you’re ready to take the first step, reach out to our Admissions Concierge Team. We’ll take the next steps together, toward the fullest, brightest version of you.