The first week of August is World Breastfeeding Week, and to me, breastfeeding and mental health are inseparable. My nursing career began in labor and delivery before I found my passion in lactation and new parent support, becoming an International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant. It was supporting new parents during those weeks and months after delivery that I realized many of the challenges they faced extended far beyond breastfeeding.
Beyond the latch
Parents would come to me looking for help with latch issues, milk supply, or feeding concerns, but our conversations almost always evolved into something much bigger. We talked about chronic sleep deprivation, limited parental leave, lack of family support, the stress of returning to work, and the overwhelming responsibility of caring for a newborn.
And did I mention the lack of sleep?
As I listened to these families, I began to see how closely physical recovery, infant feeding, and mental health were connected. Those experiences ultimately inspired me to pursue further education and become a psychiatric nurse practitioner.
The advice wasn’t the problem
Throughout my years as a lactation consultant, family members often told me my recommendations were unrealistic.
“Feed or pump every three hours.”
“Sleep when the baby sleeps.”
“Hand the baby to someone else so you can shower.”
“Let others take care of the dishes and laundry.”
The reality is that every one of those recommendations is evidence-based. They are supported by both lactation research and mental health research.
The problem isn’t the advice.
The problem is that many families simply don’t have the support necessary to make that advice possible.
Where did the village go?
In America, we’ve gradually lost much of the “village” that once surrounded new parents. Friends and family often gather to celebrate a pregnancy with a gender reveal or baby shower, but once the baby arrives, many parents find themselves isolated. Meals stop coming. Visitors disappear. Parents are left trying to recover, feed a newborn around the clock, manage household responsibilities, and often prepare to return to work far sooner than they’re ready.
It’s no surprise that mental health suffers.
What the research tells us
Perinatal mental health conditions affect more than one in five individuals during pregnancy and the first year after birth, making them among the most common complications of pregnancy. And rates have grown substantially over the past decade.
One of the largest studies to date analyzed nearly 40 million U.S. delivery hospitalizations between 2006 and 2015. The findings were sobering: the rate of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders more than doubled during that period — from 18.4 to 40.4 diagnoses per 1,000 deliveries. Rates of serious mental illness also nearly doubled (McKee et al., 2020).
And it isn’t only birthing parents who are affected. A 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis pooling 23 studies and 29,286 couples found that in up to roughly 3% of couples, both parents experience perinatal depression at the same time (Smythe et al., 2022). The authors found so few studies reporting anxiety in both parents that they could not pool the data at all — which tells you something in itself about how little attention non-birthing parents have received. Perinatal mental health is a family issue, not just a maternal one.
The ripple effects
When parents struggle, the effects extend far beyond the individual. A comprehensive meta-analysis examining child outcomes across the first 18 years of life found that untreated maternal perinatal depression and anxiety can influence a child’s social-emotional development, cognitive functioning, language skills, and adaptive behavior (Rogers et al., 2020). Untreated perinatal mental health conditions also contribute to family stress, lost work, and higher healthcare costs.
None of this means parents who are struggling are failing. It means the current system is failing them. And it means that community support and timely mental health care aren’t luxuries — they are protective factors for entire families.
So what can we do?
The good news is that meaningful support doesn’t have to be complicated. Small acts of kindness can make a tremendous difference for a family adjusting to life with a new baby. Here are a few ways each of us can help:
- Show up after the baby arrives. Support shouldn’t end after the baby shower.
- Bring a meal. Better yet, bring one in a container that doesn’t need to be returned.
- Offer practical help. Fold laundry, wash bottles, walk the dog, mow the lawn, run a quick errand.
- Hold the baby so parents can rest, shower, or eat a meal with both hands.
- Listen more than you advise. Sometimes parents don’t need solutions — they need someone who will simply hear them without judgment.
- Avoid criticism. Every family is doing the best they can with the resources they have.
- Check in regularly. A simple text asking, “How are you doing?” can remind a parent they haven’t been forgotten.
- Encourage professional support when needed. Asking for help is a sign of strength, not failure.
When to reach out for professional support
If mood symptoms persist even with community support — or if a parent notices signs of depression, severe anxiety, intrusive thoughts, or difficulty bonding with the baby — it’s time to talk to a professional. An OB provider can be a good starting point, but a psychiatric provider with experience in perinatal mood disorders and lactation is uniquely equipped to help.
Warning signs that warrant a call include:
- Persistent sadness, hopelessness, or frequent crying
- Feeling overwhelmed, emotionally numb, or disconnected from the baby
- Excessive worry, panic, or racing thoughts
- Intrusive or frightening thoughts you can’t shake
- Difficulty bonding with your baby
- Rage, irritability, or feeling out of control
- Trouble eating, sleeping (beyond baby-related sleep loss), or functioning
- Thoughts of harming yourself, the baby, or others
If you or someone you love is experiencing thoughts of self-harm or a mental health emergency, please reach out right away.Postpartum Support International Helpline: 1-800-944-4773 (call or text)988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline: call or text 988
A final word
As a psychiatric nurse practitioner and IBCLC, I’ve learned that supporting infant feeding also means supporting parental mental health. We cannot expect families to thrive if we ask them to do one of the hardest jobs in the world without adequate support.
This World Breastfeeding Week, let’s celebrate not only breastfeeding, but also the parents doing their best every single day. Let’s remember that healthy babies need healthy parents, and healthy parents need a community that shows up long after the gifts have been opened.
Maybe it’s time to rebuild our villages — one meal, one conversation, and one act of kindness at a time.
Care at Prestige Health & Wellness
If you’re pregnant, postpartum, or in the first year with a new baby and struggling with mood, anxiety, sleep, feeding, or bonding, you don’t have to walk it alone. As a Psychiatric Mental Health Nurse Practitioner and International Board-Certified Lactation Consultant, I bring both perspectives into every visit so infant feeding and parental mental health are cared for together. Our full team also offers therapy, medication management, and whole-person care at both locations.
Tampa: 813-252-0171 | Lakeland: 863-250-0240
Book online: https://yourprestigehealth.com
References
McKee, K., Admon, L. K., Winkelman, T. N. A., Muzik, M., Hall, S., Dalton, V. K., & Zivin, K. (2020). Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, serious mental illness, and delivery-related health outcomes, United States, 2006–2015. BMC Women’s Health, 20(1), 150. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12905-020-00996-6
Rogers, A., Obst, S., Teague, S. J., Rossen, L., Spry, E. A., Macdonald, J. A., Sunderland, M., Olsson, C. A., Youssef, G., & Hutchinson, D. (2020). Association between maternal perinatal depression and anxiety and child and adolescent development: A meta-analysis. JAMA Pediatrics, 174(11), 1082–1092. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.2910
Smythe, K. L., Petersen, I., & Schartau, P. (2022). Prevalence of perinatal depression and anxiety in both parents: A systematic review and meta-analysis. JAMA Network Open, 5(6), e2218969. https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.18969
