Adjusting to Life with Less Oxytocin

Once again, my hormonal landscape is changing. Cameron is nearly 9 months old and finally getting the hang of food, which means he's nursing only 4 - 5 times in a 24 hour period. Less nursing means less pumping when we're separated and less night-time feedings. But it also means something for which I wasn't fully prepared—less oxytocin.

Up until recently, motherhood felt like a lovely haze. Sure, I was sleep-deprived and often exhausted, but I was cloaked in a thick mellow, new-love-type high that was actually quite energizing. As Cameron nurses less, I'm coming to.

Despite 8 hours of sleep most nights, my sleep debt from the past 9 months is palpable. I'm getting overwhelmed by responsibilities more easily. I forget to return phone calls and missed my little brother's birthday this week.

I'm doing a bit of an overshare here because I think how I'm feeling is quite common. My husband sent me a Yahoo news article that tagged oxytocin as the "love drug." That's when it clicked. Oxytocin has been keeping my mental health balance in the black.

Especially for someone like me, who has a history of depression, this is a vulnerable time. I've been on gaurd against postpartum depression, but I can't say I've heard much about the possibility of depression returning while baby transitions to solid food. Maybe it's because only 31% of babies are nursing at all by the time they reach 9 months old, so most women go through this earlier in the postpartum period while transitioning to formula.

The upside of my experience with depression is I know I don't have to feel bad. I have a highly attuned radar to the first hints of trouble and an arsenal of tools at my disposal. When my Grandma hit postpartum depression after her fourth birth with twighlight sleep, she was treated with shock therapy and a hystorectomy. Thank god for today's range of choices in birth and mental health.

I do, however, think we could still be doing better. As long as one in three women are giving birth by cesarean, women on Medicaid (and many private insurance companies) can't get effective treatment for mental health problems, and health care providers tell women they have to wean in order to even consider medication, we're still not where we need to be.