Postpartum Support Groups

There are many important elements to facilitating an effective support group for postpartum depression. One of the first things that is crucial for a facilitator to establish is a culture that invites the sharing of difficult, potentially taboo subjects. Cara Fairfax, a social worker who has been running her own support group for folks with postpartum depression talks about how it is important to establish mandatory reporter guidelines so women know that they can share many things without loosing their child to child protective services. To a postpartum mother struggling with suicidal or homicidal ideation, they may feel they have to carry that burden themselves for fear of losing their child. It is important to allow women to have a space to share feelings of regret, anger towards their child, fear about losing their relationship and difficulty with sex and intimacy postpartum, and also suicidal and homicidal ideation.

Taboo subjects are not only emotional either. The physical symptoms postpartum mothers experience often are considered shameful or inappropriate to talk about, such as leaking breasts, hemorrhoids, and loss of bladder control. Being able to share these symptoms makes it so women feel less shame and instead experience camaraderie with other people experiencing the same things as them.

It is important to choose a good location for the support group. Addrienne Griffin talks about her postpartum support group and talks about how important it has been for her to host her group at a hospital. This is good because women who have given birth at that hospital already know about their group. Also, the hospital advertises for them in their publication and on their website. Griffin talked about how hosting it at a hospital was helpful because there are other postpartum resources operating in the hospital, such as breastfeeding classes. The classes and groups in the hospital formed good rapport with each other. They made sure to reach out to the folks receiving services from them and suggest other classes and resources from the hospital to them.