Pakistani actor Sarwat Gilani discusses severe postpartum depression: Self-care tips for new moms

Pakistani actress Sarwat Gilani revealed in a recent interview about battling postpartum depression, highlighting the importance of postpartum recovery. Sarwat explained how after “a serious surgery” she met her baby who was having trouble feeding while she herself was struggling, “So, I felt I should give him up so that I can get rid of the stress I was going through. I was crying when I entered the room. I told Fahad that I wanted to hurt the newborn. He told me it was postpartum depression.”

The actor is married to cosmetology surgeon and actor Fahad Mirza and added, “So, it’s okay and it’s not your permanent feeling. So, you should be aware that the weird feeling you have inside you is not you. It’s just your mental state that you are going through. So, you should read more about postpartum depression to understand it better. Anything can happen to a person during that stage.”

In an interview with HT Lifestyle, Dr Shumaila Bassi, Senior Consultant-Obstetrics & Gynecologist at Cloudnine Group of Hospitals, Ludhiana, said, “After delivery, you may think you can get back to normal life. However, this time of your life is filled with adjustments to the newborn and also the recovery time from the delivery. It is important to remember that delivery is something your body will need to recover from over time. Irrespective of the type of delivery, vaginal or ceremonial, your body will need time to heal.”

She elaborated, “Let us divide this phase into two parts, the first week after delivery and the second, the next five weeks after delivery. The postpartum period is a total of six weeks, i.e. 40 days after delivery. This is followed by the next two months. So, a total of three months after any delivery is the time you need to recover completely after the delivery process. The first month of having a newborn can be very overwhelming. At times, you may feel that all your time is focused on taking care of your baby. But don’t forget to take care of yourself. You must have heard this saying. If you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of your baby, and it actually has an element of truth to it.”

To take care of your health after delivery, you have to take care of many things. According to Dr. Shumaila Bassi, these things are as follows –

1. Rest: Giving birth is a lot of work and you probably won’t be able to sleep much in the hospital. The first few weeks after delivery it is very important for you to get as much rest as possible and try to sleep whenever possible or rest when your baby is sleeping.
2. Eat: Eat as per your doctor’s advice and this mainly includes healthy home cooked light food, especially for the first 24 hours after caesarean as food is given and then full diet is recommended. Try to eat small frequent meals. Stay well hydrated, use the traditional Indian system of drinking lots of water with cumin and salt for breastfeeding, take salt and sugar in water to stay hydrated, eat light meals and short time meals during the day so that you do not get stomach pain and digestion problems and also after having meals if possible take a short walk or sit upright for a while and then take a nap so that your food gets digested and you get the benefits of that healthy diet. The tradition of eating panjiri starts after the delivery process. Once your doctor advises you to have it but make sure that you and your baby are doing well, take it in small quantities, initially alternately and then increase the quantity and take it daily. It helps you recover from the delivery process.
3. Avoid lifting heavy objects: You should avoid lifting anything heavier than your baby while you are recovering. This is especially important. If you have a C-section after delivery, avoid bending down in the same way, especially after a scissor section if you need to lift something, please sit on the floor with your knees bent and pick things up, also you should be careful about how to get up from the bed. You should turn yourself to one side and then get up from the bed so that the abdominal pressure is reduced if we can use an abdominal binder especially after a C-section.
4. Washing Your Hands It’s very important, although it may seem like a simple thing, to make sure you wash your hands often. Especially after going to the bathroom or touching your underwear or your own napkins or your baby’s diapers or before touching and feeding your baby.
5. Limit your stair climbing during the first week: You should try to reduce the amount of stairs you climb. Try to limit the number of times you go up and down stairs each day while you recover from a C-section.
6. Keep your baby care simple: It is quite difficult to understand your baby’s schedule and needs in the first few weeks and don’t go by your to-do list when it comes to your baby’s needs. Your baby does not need to take a bath every day, instead we can wipe the baby with a clean cloth or we can take help from our family members.
7. Asking for help: Don’t be afraid or feel guilty about asking for help. Let your family and friends help you out. Help you cook, help you with household chores, take care of the baby when you are sleeping and burp the baby, bring groceries for you from the market, etc.
8. Limiting the number of visitors: People will want to come and meet your new family member. However this may not be the best time to host. Guess we should know that it is okay to limit visitors and refuse company altogether for the first few weeks. During this time you will be adjusting to the new life with your baby, even the baby will be trying to sleep longer and has to adjust to this new environment. If we have fewer visitors it becomes much easier for a mother to feed the baby and keep the baby on her chest for longer periods and let the baby sleep. This helps maintain the baby’s temperature and is very healing for the baby in the first few days.
9. Not striving for perfection: Don’t stress over minor messes; people may come to visit you and your baby, but a dirty house won’t make them feel uncomfortable.
10. Limit phone use: Stay away from iPad and TV at this time because eyes need rest, we should not put too much pressure on them. So keep your eyes away from the mobile. And try to turn it off so that there is no radiation in the room.
11. Pay attention to your mental health: Pay attention to how you feel during this time. If you feel you are not feeling well or are very sad, guilty, tired, depressed then talk to your family members and friends and try to get help.
12. Posture Maintaining the correct posture is very important right from infancy. If you have had a vaginal or C-section birth, try to keep your back and neck straight, especially while breastfeeding.
13. Sex – When to have sex? While after your first and subsequent checkup appointments, your body needs time to heal your vagina, or area around it, after giving birth and it’s important to wait a few weeks to have sex as part of that healing process, your healthcare provider will tell you when it’s OK to have sex again once your perineum has healed and your postpartum bleeding and discharge are minimal.
14. birth control: Discuss birth control with your healthcare provider. Even if you don’t have a period while you’re breastfeeding, you can still get pregnant after six to 8 weeks.
15. Care for your stitches, vagina, or abdomen: The healthcare provider will tell you how to do it. If you have a vagina we need to use ointment. We need to avoid squats. We need to avoid constipation and too much pelvic pressure and we need to clean. Keep them clean and try to take warm baths as advised by the healthcare provider for abdominal stitches. Also we need to keep them dry and apply ointment before and after bathing and also take care of the surrounding skin and keep it moisturized.
16. Always take the dose and medication as prescribed by your healthcare provider: Don’t take these lightly, especially iron and calcium and other multivitamins. Go to all your scheduled hospital appointments. It is important to avoid alcohol and caffeine during this time.
17. Large glasses filled with liquids: Water, juices, milk, jeera water are good options. A healthy diet will help you recover in the weeks following delivery.
18. Exercise and walking: Take a walk. In the initial weeks while taking care of your stitches it is good to take a break from bed and take a walk and after two weeks if you feel like exercising you can do simple neck and arm and leg exercises only, do not do strenuous core body exercises, gentle walking is the first step to exercise after delivery and you can start your normal exercises after six weeks of vaginal birth, and three months after birth after consulting your doctor.

Dr. Shumaila Basi concludes, “Postpartum depression or baby blues or whatever you may call it, is real. It is not something that is talked about much, but it happens and sometimes there is no known cause for it. It is a complex mix of physical, emotional and behavioural changes that happen after childbirth, which makes you feel depressed, feelings of sadness, anxiety, guilt, hopelessness, fatigue can all be part of it and in a severe form. If you experience any of these, reach out to your family, friends or your doctor or healthcare provider. Don’t let it get too bad before seeking any advice or help. Try to do this at an early stage.”