![]() She shared her fears with her husband, who decided to take a leave from work fearing that Justine would harm their baby. Not only did she have intrusive thoughts about harming her baby, but gruesome images popped into her head as well, causing immediate distress and panic. She worried she would poison the baby’s formula, would lose control and smother the baby with a pillow, and the worst fear was that she would somehow use a kitchen knife to harm her baby. Justine got less and less sleep, and her symptoms seemed to increase in intensity. ![]() She also had intrusive thoughts about her baby not breathing, so she stayed up all hours of the night to check that the baby was still breathing. She started to avoid diaper changes, and would have her husband do them instead. She worried she would touch the baby in a sexually inappropriate way. Justine started having intrusive thoughts when she would change the baby’s diaper. The nurses and doctor’s reassured Justine that she was just having “new parent jitters” and that she would feel much better after delivering her baby.Īfter her daughter was born, things only seemed to get worse. As time went on and she got closer to the end of pregnancy, Justine started calling the OB-GYN office daily to ask questions and would often be told to come into the office to have an ultrasound to be sure everything was “okay” with the baby. ![]() At first, Justine would simply drink something sugary and lie down on her side to see if the baby started moving. Then, she noticed fears about losing her pregnancy before going into labor. Her husband even surprised her with a home water system cooler that would have water delivered weekly. She stopped drinking her tap water and started only drinking bottled water. She noticed that if she drank tap water, she would have intrusive thoughts about her baby being slowly poisoned from something in the water supply. ![]() Six months into Justine’s pregnancy, she noticed that she was petrified about something happening to her unborn child. To better understand Perinatal OCD, let’s consider an example: In Perinatal OCD, the content of obsessions and compulsive behaviors will most often center around fear of harm or contamination coming to their infant. These include intrusive thoughts, urges, or images (obsessions) and physical or mental acts (compulsions) done in an attempt to neutralize fears or prevent a feared outcome. Pregnant and post-pregnancy mothers are at an increased risk of OCD symptoms due to fluctuation of hormones during this time, as well as the fact that having a child itself can be a major stressor, contributing to an onset of OCD symptoms. Some people who experience Perinatal OCD may never have been diagnosed with OCD before and pregnancy acts as a trigger for symptoms, while others may have been diagnosed or experienced symptoms in the past, but notice an intense increase in symptoms during the perinatal period. Perinatal OCD, sometimes also referred to as Postpartum OCD, refers to obsessive-compulsive disorder that occurs during sometime from the onset of pregnancy up to one year after pregnancy. ![]()
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