Post Natal Therapy

        Having a new baby is a significant transition in any relationship, and has an enormous impact on your body. Child birth is a profound, spiritual, emotional, mind blowing, earth shaking, redefining, beautiful experience that reorients everything you know about your world, your body, and your life.  The experience of conception, pregnancy, and child birth is all a life altering process for each parent. On top of all that, the experience has been medicalized and the experience has been minimized. Sexuality and intimacy is one of the things that commonly suffers following a new baby and few people talk about it, and less people address it. After child birth, a mother's body is primed to be instantly distracted by any noise or potential threat, and her physical body has gone through enormous changes. Beyond that, add exhaustion, body image, questions about the future, financial implications, and a new relationship between partners that is unique to their process.  Other individuals suffer a traumatic birth, adding another layer of complexity to the system, especially when anxiety, PTSD, trauma, or negative outcomes are involved. With all those things going on, and the experience of grieving parts of the way things were, while being in love with this new and amazing human you are responsible for with no processing or support often their are overwhelming expectations.  Now, after all that, hurry up and be turned on, and want to have sex immediately six weeks later, with this new body, new feelings, and a partner you may see in new and different ways, while your baby sleeps or cries. 

        It is important to know, a mother's body is being bombarded with the most intense series of chemicals, and the most intense memory formation experience you can have as a human. It really is that significant, it is that powerful, and it does change you as a person and who you become in the future. It is normal to experience a cascade of emotions, changes, and shifting world views. The one thing that every parent will agree on, is that their vision of child birth, the post-natal experience, and the first weeks, months, and years of that child's life are not what you planned. What is different is unique to everyone, but it will be different. This may come with all kinds of disillusionment, isolation, and loneliness, and that is OK. Bonding may not be instant, easy, or fast, and that is OK too!  It is also important to know that the medical model of child birth doesn't come with the built in support to move through all of these challenges. It is also important to give credit to the fact that there is now another person involved in your relationship in a way that did not exist before. That person, your child, has needs, wants, and a loud voice that is now a component of the couple in a way they have never had to address till now.  

        At Eros Health Center we work with individuals and couples to overcome the challenges created by changing demands, responsibilities, hormones, and bodies. With so many things changing it is normal to struggle. We work in collaboration with pelvic floor physical therapists, OB-GYN's and other medical professionals to create a collaborative treatment plan and address your specific difficulties relating to post-natal care. It so helpful to encourage open dialogue and communication around new and changing physical sensations that may be hard to express, identify, and work with.  We can address your concerns, and process through regaining your intimate lives with you individually, as a couple, or some of both.