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new moms

Mom gives uncomfortably honest review of 'baby blues'

Most depictions of the early days of motherhood oscillate between blissful joy and utter exhaustion. There doesn't seem to be an in-between shown in the media often, and it's also not something generally talked about openly. Sure there may be people that openly share their struggles with postpartum depression but that's on the other end of the spectrum of typical "baby blues." When the hormonal phenomenon is mentioned, there's usually not enough detail given for new moms to know what to expect.

A writer, musician and brand new first-time mom, Sam, who goes by Sam Doll on social media, is ripping the lid completely off of "baby blues" with her unfiltered review of postpartum. Sam's son is just barely a few weeks old so not enough time has passed for the hormones to settle for the early days of motherhood to be overwritten by time gaps and dump truck loads of oxytocin. Babies have a way of making you forget the less pleasant parts of early parenting days. It's likely nature's way of making sure we will continue to procreate after the first child.

postpartum depression; baby blues; new parents; motherhood; new mom; parentinglove and hip hop baby GIF by VH1Giphy

Thankfully for new moms looking to the Internet to find out what to expect or what others have experienced, Sam is telling it all. Her deadpan delivery makes the raw review all the more impactful. She starts the video with a warning to those thinking about having children–don't. Unless it's too late or you really, really want to.

"If you're thinking about giving birth, first of all, don't. Unless you really want to, it's too late and you're already doing it. I just want to tell you this so that you don't freak out. Well you're going to freak out...but so you don't freak out too much if this happens. Okay, so birth," Sam says speaking rapidly. As someone else on TikTok put it, birth is a near-death experience. But it's worse than that.It's actually borderline a thousand times worse because after you get home from your near death experience, you go insane. Doctors call it 'baby blues' which is a cute way of saying whether you like it or not your brain is going to turn against you and think the most psychotic thoughts you could possibly think."

postpartum depression; baby blues; new parents; motherhood; new mom; parentingwoman kissing baby Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash

The new mom goes on to explain different thoughts that might pop into a postpartum mom's head like, "Can I give this thing up for adoption?", "What are my outs here?", "What do I do? Also, who is this kid?" Sam says that she was expecting this magical made-for-television moment where she sees her baby for the first time and feels an instant connection. She thought her child would feel like something that was once missing and now completed her but instead her reality was much different. Sam would not have her Hallmark movie moment immediately after birth and it's a common experience.

According to the March of Dimes, 80% of postpartum people experience baby blues starting shortly after the birth of their child. Baby blues is a short-lived condition often caused by the rapid decrease in the hormones once used to maintain pregnancy. One of the main differences between baby blues and postpartum depression is the intensity and duration of symptoms. Postpartum depression can start at any point between one week to 12 months after giving birth while baby blues starts pretty immediately 2-3 days after birth and only last for a couple of weeks. Baby blues also doesn't involve scary thoughts or feelings of hopelessness.

 
 @sam_d0ll the baby blues had me in a chokehold #storytime #fyp ♬ original sound - Felix bharbie 
 
 

But some moms, like Sam, may feel a bit disconnected at first. "First of all, the first time I saw my baby I was on ketamine, so there was that but even after the come down, I was looking at him like 'who is this random baby? Who's this random baby?' Then I started panicking. I'm like uh-oh, I feel like this is a random baby. I don't feel like I think how I'm supposed to feel about it," she says before sharing that she compared her love for her dog to her baby making herself feel worse.

Sam explains that she cried for days believing that she loved her dog more than she loved her baby. Fearing she might be broken, the new mom reached out to other mothers who assured her that they too did not feel an instant connection with their first child. The normalcy was reiterated by people in her comments with one person writing, "Took me two weeks to (how I phrased it) 'decide to keep her.'"

postpartum depression; baby blues; new parents; motherhood; new mom; parentingSleepy New Baby GIF by Zoey's Extraordinary PlaylistGiphy

"Wait THAT was “baby blues”?!? It took like 2ish months for me to love my baby. I felt like I was babysitting. I would cry wondering when her real mom was gunna come get her because surely that wasn’t me," someone else says.

"4 weeks postpartum with my second and sometimes I’m still like 'girl, when are your parents coming?'" another reveals.

"My brain was yelling 'RUN' for days. Baby was VERY much wanted and planned for. Hormones be crazy," one person chimes in.

"i am so glad i live in an age where mothers can be honest about motherhood. i don’t mean this lightheartedly: thank you for being so transparent," shares one more.

Mom brought to tears over notes in airport nursing room

Being a new mom can be a scary time because everything is new to you and your baby. But when you're nursing it can be a lonely time as well since so many times it can be physically isolating, especially if you're not comfortable nursing in front of others. Sometimes the need to find a private place to nurse is because your baby is easily distracted.

This can make any mom feel alone in her struggle but in Pittsburgh International Airport, moms are pitching in to remind others that they're part of a larger community. Jenna Dillulio is a mom of a toddler who also happens to have anxiety around flying who was flying solo with her toddler daughter to Pittsburgh.

While on her way home from her trip, she stopped in the nursing lounge to nurse her toddler before their flight and noticed something that brought her to tears.


Hundreds of sticky notes lined the walls of the nursing lounge. They were all from mother's who had sat in that very room to nurse their own babies leaving sweet encouraging messages to other moms that may need a boost. Dillulio happened to be one of those moms and the messages came just when she needed them the most.

"Immediately when I opened up the door, I just was overcome with emotion. It was my first time traveling with her, so to walk in there and then to need the support and then you get it without expecting it, it warmed my heart to see all those post-its," Dillulio tells Good Morning America.

Before catching her flight, the mom stopped to write her own encouraging note for another overwhelmed mom to find. The entire practice is beautiful in a place people least expect it. Watch the entire thing below.

Parenting

New mom shares list of 'icks' and other new parents are nodding hard in agreement

"The 'I've raised kids, I think I know better than you' speech."

New mom shares her list of pet peeves and other parents relate

Becoming a new mom is hard. You've got this tiny human depending on you for its survival all while you're healing from bringing them into the world. But the piece that can get to be overwhelming is fielding visitors and their well intentioned unsolicited advice.

You're already feeling a bit underprepared for the undertaking but you've done your research, spoke to professionals and have been in every mom group imaginable.

So if you know nothing else, you know what rules you have around others spending time with your new bundle of joy. Here's the thing though, not everyone respects those rules or your new position as a mom, which means you're constantly defending your boundaries.

One new mom, Tay shared a series of photos through video on TikTok that displayed, "icks" she has as a new mom.

The post has caused some waves with people who are probably feeling a bit guilty of doing the things on the "ick" list. But there are many new parents in the comments nodding their heads hard in agreement.


Mom holding baby with text overlay

New mom shares her list of pet peeves and other parents relate

Tay|TikTok

As someone who has been a new parent, I can honestly say that I wish I had the knowledge that I was allowed to tell people "no, thank you" when it came to my new baby. It's amazing that new parents are finding community and courage through social media to set clear boundaries. So what are the new mom "icks" that have gotten people whipped into a tizzy?

newborn looking at camera with text overlay

New mom shares her list of pet peeves and other parents relate

Tay|TikTok

The icks range from refusing to give the baby back upon request, even if the child is crying to offering unsolicited advice. Tay really lays out multiple scenarios that many new parents are likely familiar with. A big one that I have personal experience with fending off is kissing.

Babies are so dang cute and no matter how small they are, they always have the chubbiest little kissable cheeks so it's easy to see why some people feel like they just have to give them a smooch. But kissing a newborn that isn't yours can be dangerous for the baby and new parents are now more educated on those dangers, option to forbid kisses from everyone but mom and dad.

newborn smiling while sleeping with text overlay

New mom shares her list of pet peeves and other parents relate

Tay|TikTok

Another "ick" that got lots of attention from commenters was talking to the parent through the new baby in an effort to be passive aggressive. If you've never experienced it before, it's when someone is holding your baby and talking in a sweet baby voice looking lovingly into the baby's eyes while saying something like, "you must be keeping mama busy cause the house is a disaster." Let's all take a moment to roll our eyes.

It seems these complaints are fairly universal for new parents if you take a gander at the comments.

"How do I send this to my MIL without sending it to her," one person asked.

"I feel this. A mom will never forget how she was treated during pregnancy and postpartum. It's when we are most vulnerable," another wrote.

"My mother in law used to body shame me through my infant," one mom confessed.

"I have gotten the 'I have raised 5 kids, I think I know better than you' from my mom so many times since having kids," someone wrote.

No matter who's baby it is, I think its safe to say you should respect the parents boundaries, even if you don't understand them. Watch the entire video here.

Education

Nurse explains how babies breathe in utero and the internet is amazed

A new mom asked how babies practice breathing, and Nurse Jen delivered an answer that's blowing people's minds.

Nurse explains how babies breathe in utero.

There are so many questions out there that we don't realize we want to know the answers to until someone else asks. Once the question is in the vicinity of our ear holes, suddenly we're like, "Oh, yeah. How does that work?" That's pretty much how this TikTok video went for a lot of viewers, myself included.

I have had four (yes, four) children exit my body, and it never dawned on me to ask further than the initial question of how babies breathe in there. It's a question that most new moms either don't think to ask or ask only once and get a similar answer to the one I received, which is that they take in oxygen via their umbilical cord connected to the placenta, so they don't need to breathe in the traditional way we think of until after birth.

But when a new mom asked the people of the internet how her unborn baby was able to practice breathing without drowning, Jen Hamilton, an OB nurse, decided to answer in a video.


Hamilton starts off her response by guaranteeing she's about to blow the mom's "motherforking mind," and I can tell you from reading the comments, she's a promise keeper. Minds were blown. She explains that babies are covered in a thick waxy substance called vernix that protects their, "skin from falling off," while they hang out in amniotic fluid for months. But it's her explanation of how hiccups help babies practice breathing and how babies know it's time to breathe air that makes you appreciate how amazing the process is.

"Under your baby's lungs are a muscle called the diaphragm. Hiccups are a spasm of the diaphragm," the OB nurse explains. "Whenever we get hiccups it sucks air into our lungs really quickly, which is what makes that sound when air passes through our vocal cords." She goes on to explain that when babies get hiccups the spasm is expanding their lungs by filling with amniotic fluid, which is how babies practice breathing.

Hamilton continues her explanation of how babies know when to breathe on the outside while not needing to breathe on the inside.

"While your baby is inside of you, there are two vessels. These vessels bypass the lungs cause it's getting all of its oxygen from you," Hamilton says.

She isn't done leaving the internet with its collective mouth agape. Hamilton tells the mom about a nerve in the face of babies that helps them to know when to breathe. That is the most fascinating part, but you have to see her explain it because writing it out just wouldn't do it justice. Watch her brilliant explanation below.

@_jen_hamilton_

#stitch with @Cori