Postpartum Anxiety Is an Epidemic Among American Mothers. Why Does It So Often Go Undiagnosed? (Time Magazine)

By Sarah Menkedick, March 20, 2020, for Time 

As a new mother, I worried about mouse poop in the small cabin where I lived. About fracking chemicals in the water. About glyphosate in the oatmeal. About flame retardants in pajamas. About phthalates in toys. Although it constantly overwhelmed me, I thought my anxiety was normal, even necessary. After all, it was my job to protect my child. When I mentioned my fear at my six-week follow-up appointment after birth—the sole instance of medical care many new moms receive in the entire year -postpartum—the midwife shrugged and chided me that anxious mothers make anxious children.

For more than two years, I worried as a full-time job, all the while telling myself I was a good mother, an extra-vigilant mother, a mother who wouldn’t make a critical mistake that would harm her child. I Googled, I read scientific studies, I could recite the latest American Academy of Pediatrics recommendations about screen time. Meanwhile I boxed myself into a narrow, miserable life, full of ritual acts of prevention and desperate information-seeking. 
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