While speaking to PEOPLE about the importance of parents' mental health — and how his company’s smart sleeper, theSNOO, can help — the prominent pediatrician shares his best advice for moms who may be struggling with postpartum depression.
“Number one, don’t keep it a secret,” Karp says. “This is a medical physiologic issue. It’s temporary. It gets better, but it requires treatment to get better.”
Karp’s second tip for those struggling is to remember that postpartum depression “may not be what you think or expect.”
“In other words, when we say the word depression, most people think of crying and tearfulness and feeling blue. Many times that is not what postpartum depression is. Many times it’s an anxious depression,” he explains. “Your mind won’t stop running. You can’t fall asleep even when you put your head on the pillow. You keep perseverating on issues.”
To manage this kind of anxiety, Karp says the first step is to “talk to somebody that you trust.”
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“It really showed that you can be happy and sad at the same time,” Karp says of the film, which starsAmanda Seyfried. “That you can have every reason to feel good and still feel bad. And you can even have a very, very supportive partner and still be hiding things. And I think that was really true through to life in terms of what so many women are feeling as they’re going through this type of process.”
Karp also says the film does a great job of highlighting that women aren’t the only ones who struggle with postpartum depression.
“Men have depression and anxiety as well. They’re sleep-deprived as well. They also have big expectations of themselves that they can’t always live up to. And so the idea that it isn’t just women who struggle with this, but it can be their partners as well, I thought was well done,” he adds.
source: people.com
