Podcast: Intrusive Thoughts with Dr Caroline Boyd

Intrusive Thoughts with Dr Caroline Boyd

Season 2, Episode 4

"What if the blanket covers baby's face and I don't notice"

"Imagine if I threw my baby down the stairs"

"I could shake you right now"

Intrusive thoughts affect around half of new mums. These thoughts of harm can feel quite terrifying, but are they anything to worry about? What can you do to manage them or where can you seek support?

In this episode I am joined by clinical psychologist Dr Caroline Boyd where she shares her research into Intrusive Thoughts and tells us about her new book 'Mindful New Mum: A Mind-Body Approach to the Highs and Lows of Motherhood'

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TRANSCRIPT

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I know right now you have no idea what to expect from birth, what it's going to feel like, how it's going to pan out.

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I'm Megan Rossiter from Birth-Ed, and you are listening to the Birth-Ed podcast.

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Ready to meet today's guest?

Hi, everyone.

Welcome back to the birth-ed podcast.

This week, we are shifting from a focus on birth and looking forwards towards the postpartum period and the early parenting years.

I'm honored to be joined by our guest today, Dr.

Caroline Boyd.

Dr.

Boyd is a clinical psychologist with over 10 years experience working in the NHS and mental health settings, and she specializes in supporting new parents in her independent psychology practice, Parent Therapy Hub.

Dr.

Boyd works with parents from pregnancy to childbirth and beyond.

She adopts a holistic approach to well-being, and she's actually just published her first book, Mindful New Mum, A Mind-Body Approach to the Highs and Lows of Motherhood, which we can hear a little bit more about later in the episode.

Today though, we are going to focus on a key area of Dr.

Boyd's work and published research by exploring a mother's experience of intrusive thoughts about their babies.

So Caroline, hello, welcome.

Thank you so much for joining us.

Hi, thank you so much for having me.

So I suppose a helpful place to kick off would be, you know, what actually are intrusive thoughts?

What does this phrase mean?

Yeah, I think that's a really helpful place to start.

We're obviously focusing on postpartum as you said, and the early period, but let's just zoom out for a minute.

And just thinking about more generally, intrusive thoughts in the general population are so common.

And they're reported by nearly or perhaps more than eight out of 10 people.

So that's a lot.

And when I talk about intrusive thoughts, I will, I would ask you, you know, have you ever had, say, an involuntary urge to scream really loudly when you're in a really quiet building?

I guess another example is if you're really high up.

I remember when I went to New York and I went up to the Empire States building and I was, you know, in a good mood, I was just doing some sightseeing.

And then I had these unwanted urges to jump off while I was looking down because it is so high up.

So it's just talking about these unwanted thoughts or images or urges or impulses that we get.

And most people have occasionally, you know, have these thoughts.

So they're really, really common.

Yeah, I totally know what you're talking about.

So this is something that probably most of us have experienced at least once the sort of like, oh, I wonder what would happen if I and then quote something that feels a little bit ridiculous.

And so how does this kind of manifest or show itself in kind of the postpartum period or as parents, I suppose?

So yeah, as you say, these intrusive thoughts, they often sort of fly in the face of social conventions.

So I tend to think of them as being the most inappropriate thing you can do at the most inappropriate time.

And a particular category of these relate to unwanted intrusive thoughts related to harming a baby.

And these can be word thoughts or images, really sort of vivid images or urges and impulses.

And they broadly come in two forms.

So one kind is accidentally harming your baby.

So that might be having an image of your baby rolling off the mat or having a thought that your baby might fall down the stairs or might suffocate.

And these kinds of thoughts have been found to be pretty much universal.

So pretty much every single new mum will have some kind of accidental thought of harming their baby.

And the other category of these are thoughts of, unwanted thoughts of intentional harm.

And these have been reported by nearly one in two women.

And examples of these.

So it might be an unwanted thought of screaming at your baby or an unwanted impulse to shake your baby.

And so these thoughts and feelings, are they generally, do they come with the sort of no intention to do it, just the hypothetical idea of of doing it?

Or do they come with the actual kind of urge to do them?

Yeah, so they do come with intense emotions.

This is what I found in my research and has been found in the larger studies.

So they come with really intense emotions.

And yeah, these kind of urges, impulses, word thoughts or images, they tend to pop up seemingly out of nowhere.

They have been found to be more likely to occur in the context of stress, which is obviously around a lot in the modern period, or for women who are feeding unsupported.

But in terms of the intense emotions, women tend to really feel shame or guilt or horror when they have these kinds of unwanted thoughts.

And the very fact that they feel ashamed or horrified about having them is a strong sign that they're not going to hurt their baby.

So they're described in the, these intrusive thoughts are described in the literature as Ego Distonic, which is a sort of fancy word of saying they tend not to sit comfortably with mum.

And this means that they're not indicative of risk in themselves.

I think it's really important to emphasize that having these kinds of unwanted thoughts doesn't mean that you pose a risk to your baby.

And the research today shows that experiencing these kinds of thoughts makes you no more likely to deliberately hurt your baby.

And I guess it maybe it's helpful to make the distinction between these kind of unwanted intrusive thoughts of harm that we're talking about today and the kinds of thoughts that might arise in the context of postpartum psychosis.

So that they would be distinct from those kinds of thoughts.

But I think maybe also important to add that the context is important.

So if a mother states intention to harm her baby or has a history of harming her baby, then of course the risk needs to be taken seriously.

And how would somebody recognize that in themselves?

Whether these are just kind of normal passing thoughts that actually a lot of women, a lot of parents are experiencing.

Or whether actually it's something that they should be more concerned about.

Well, I think really the context is important.

I think the kinds of thoughts that we're really talking about today are more anxiety driven.

So it's really about sort of asking yourself firstly, what's your intention?

You know, is your intention to hurt your baby?

With these kinds of thoughts, it's mostly no.

And also if you are feeling in terms of your emotional response, if you are feeling, you know, real shame or guilt or horror that you're even having these thoughts, then that's one sign that these are unwanted, anxiety driven.

And do you find that they tend to come sort of alongside other mental health difficulties like anxiety, or can they be completely standalone that this is just something that you might experience as a single sort of thing?

Yeah, I mean, I think when I started looking into it for my research, I kind of came at it, I guess, understanding that these kinds of thoughts, because, you know, the thoughts of accidental harm have been found to be universal.

And the thoughts of intentional harm have been reported by nearly one in two women.

So that's a lot.

Yeah.

And so I think that's likely to be an underestimation because, you know, the fears of disclosing these kinds of thoughts.

And that's something that we can come on to talk about, why women don't talk about them.

But I think, you know, I understand these kinds of unwanted thoughts as really as part and parcel of new parenthood.

Yeah.

Because they are so common.

And I think it can be helpful to understand that they occur as part of the adjustment to having a baby, you know, a way of adapting to the huge responsibility.

And I think in my study, these kinds of thoughts made women more conscious of their power, in contrast to their baby's vulnerability.

So I guess we can think of them as an adaptive response, helping moms work out clear boundaries about what's morally acceptable and what's not.

They're an effective warning system in that sense.

Is there any kind of evolutionary theory behind them?

Do we think it's hormonal?

Do we think it's a protective thing?

Or is it under-researched at the moment?

Well, yeah, there's very little research on these kinds of thoughts, which I think is interesting in itself.

It shows a bit how taboo they are still.

There's some really interesting research, well, I find it interesting, by a neuroscientist called Elselene Hoxamer.

I hope I pronounced her name right.

She and her team have found that another reason why these thoughts might occur is because she's found significant brain and hormone related changes are going on in women's brains starting in pregnancy and then lasting into motherhood at least two years postpartum.

And what she's found is that these neurobiological changes actually help a mum multitask to meet her baby's needs.

So by that, I mean they help the mum respond empathetically to her baby, whether the baby is cooing at her, but and also to perceive threats.

So, you know, if we're thinking about these kind of anxiety driven thoughts and then understanding that the anxiety or the hypervigilance that many new mums feel in that early period, and then perhaps understanding, well, this is a sign that your powerful, dynamic maternal brain is doing what it's designed to do.

To shape mums into the fierce protectors that they are, focus on safety.

I always find it totally fascinating when you kind of take stuff back to, just back to evolution and physiology and to work out which parts of our behaviour and which parts of our human experience come from like an evolutionary need to do things and which things are kind of influenced and shaped by the kind of modern world that we live in.

And I just think I find it such an interesting thing to hear about from from a kind of mental perspective as well.

So we sort of started to touch on the, it sounds like this is something that's very, very frequently experienced.

I think, I imagine that most people listening are going to resonate with this, if not now, then probably at some point in the future in their lives.

But, you know, it's absolutely not something that we hear talked about kind of at all, you know, in terms of kind of mental health and our experience of what we think and feel postnatally specifically.

We're starting to talk more about the kind of experience of postnatal depression as probably the kind of primary focus.

Then touching on when you kind of get a little bit deeper, there's sort of a bit of thought and conversation about things like postnatal anxiety.

But it isn't something that we talk about really much at all.

And specifically the kind of idea of intrusive thoughts, which I suppose are something that you might feel more ashamed about, that feel a little bit more taboo, that you maybe feel a little bit more worried about in yourself, so not able to share.

What would you say in your experience, kind of working with mothers specifically in the postnatal period?

Why don't we talk about it?

Well, I think it's such a big question.

And I do, I agree that there's, you know, there's increasing awareness around things like postpartum depression.

Yeah, still, I think it's really difficult to talk about the more quotation marks, opening negative experiences that mums may have.

But I think why are these thoughts so taboo?

I think a lot of it is because they just don't fit our ideas of what it means to be a good mum.

I think, you know, the well, certainly the women that I interviewed in my research were worried that having these thoughts are a sign that they're either mad or bad.

And if they shared them, they'll be judged an unfit mum and worse, have their baby taken away.

So I think there are real there are real sort of implications where, you know, a mum worries that sharing these kinds of thoughts will mean further intervention that she, you know, they might be interpreted in a certain way from the point of view of risk.

And so there are real fears around sharing these kinds of thoughts.

Yeah, I completely I completely understand that.

And I opened up this question to our Instagram community yesterday to just to kind of get a feel for what people wanted to know what people's kind of experiences were.

And that that did come up time and time again that there was this fear of how could I possibly tell my partner?

How could I possibly tell my midwife, my health visitor, my GP or something?

Because are they then going to be fearful that I'm going to do something bad, that I'm going to do something wrong?

And what are the kind of legal long term implications of that?

And I suppose even from a kind of, we'll move on to partners in a minute, but from a partner's perspective, family members, friends' perspective, because it's not something that we talk about, when somebody potentially does say that they're feeling these things, it might sound unusual.

It might sound like something that is uncommon or concerning.

And it's probably not such common knowledge that it is such a common experience for people.

So if somebody is experiencing this and they do want to share it with somebody or seek out help or support, how do they do that?

How do you breach what could potentially feel like such a difficult conversation?

Yeah, I think there's, well, there's a lot to speak to in what you just said, I think.

I wondered if it would be helpful first just to understand and maybe for us to talk a little bit more about what our ideas of the Good Momma are, because they are so strong, I think.

I mean, I refer to it a lot in my work as the myth of Supermom.

You know, this idea that as mothers, we should be serene and calm and in control at all times and loving every minute.

So I suppose it's perpetuated by social media and things like that, isn't it?

This idea that you have to be getting things right all the time.

You have to know what you're doing.

You have to have control.

You have to be feeling positive and be feeling good and sharing the highlight reel of parenthood, of life with children.

It almost becomes like a competition, doesn't it?

Which makes it really difficult for women when they become mothers.

They feel either the competition of being the most tired mum or having to be calm and in control and do everything without showing any vulnerability.

And it feels like there's a lot of external noise.

And I think what you were saying about those curated Instagram feeds, I think they're so unhelpful and so damaging.

But I actually think those positive images of motherhood, they surround us from an early age, from the fairy tales that we read as children.

We can think about the Madonna and child pictures in paintings.

And then we can think about celebrities just showing all the good bits on a beach with the beach-ready bodies after childbirth.

So I think this projection of perfection is very strong.

And I think the problem with it is that it creates the idea that there's only one way to feel, as in joyful, calm, always coping, and any negative feelings mean that you're somehow bad or abnormal.

And I think this myth, which I refer to as the super-mum myth, some people talk about it as the perfect mum myth, it gets internalized.

So in my research, it shaped all of my participants' ideas of the good mum and how they made sense of their unwanted thoughts.

So this means that half the women I interviewed labeled their harm thoughts as mad or bad because they interpreted them to mean that they're a bad mum.

So when I said bad, for example, one woman described having recurring impulses to throw her baby from a bridge and then thinking that she was somehow bad or inadequate.

So you start to see that you're feeling understandably overwhelmed in the chaos of those early months.

Then you have an unwanted, intrusive thought of harm about your baby, and then you feel intensely bad about having that thought.

So you try to suppress it.

In turn, it becomes this downward spiral.

Yeah, yeah, I can absolutely see how that starts and then how that is perpetuated by our understanding and our expectation.

And I think it's, yes, it falls down to kind of the images that we see on social media and in literature and everything in terms of that Superman myth that you've talked about.

But I think it must also come just from general kind of society and culture, even amongst friends, amongst family.

We're not ready to share the hard and difficult bits necessarily, even from a lot of people for their for their own parents.

There again is this notion that those difficult bits happen in private and secret and you wouldn't want to worry somebody or frighten somebody with them or burden somebody with them, so they're not talked about.

So there again is perpetuated by the idea that, oh, well, all the other mums are coping, you know, the the anti-natal group, WhatsApp groups, all of it.

Everybody else seems to be coping because these things aren't talked about.

And it's just that resounding that resounding myth or stuff that goes unspoken that that continues to contribute to that.

Yeah, no, absolutely.

I think, you know, we all internalize these these ideas and no one's immune from that.

So I think I just wanted to go back to your question, which is an important one about, you know, how how could a mum go about sharing these kinds of thoughts?

Because I think talking about them does really help.

You know, certainly that's what I found in my research and I continue to find in my clinical work with mums that talking brings so much relief.

And so if you can, you know, if you're listening today and you're struggling with these kinds of thoughts, if you can be brave and take a bit of a risk and talk to a mum friend who you trust or partner if you have one.

And particularly, I guess with a mum friend, you know, it's very likely that she may not have had exactly the same experiences, but given how common they are, she may have similar experiences that she could also reflect back to you.

But I think just feeling validated in having these kinds of thoughts and being able to make sense of them with someone else, you know, whether that's a loved one or a health professional, again, that you trust, can bring so much relief.

Something that I often do on our anti-natal courses, so working with women when they're pregnant, well, with families when they're pregnant, so this might be a helpful thing to do if you're currently pregnant and you're maybe not experiencing any of these things at the moment.

I always say write down a few people that you could talk to and a few ways that you could communicate so that if you then need to, when you're feeling low and you don't have the capacity or you're feeling concerned about something, you don't have the capacity to think up, who am I going to talk to?

How am I going to communicate with them?

You've kind of already decided, you've already thought of it, and there's so many options in terms of if you want to be kind of totally anonymous, some of the online forums are really good places to reach out anonymously, which sometimes can be a kind of baby step to getting support, feeling that validation.

And then again, friends, partners, family members, and then right up to kind of health professionals, whether that's specific mental health support, whether that's a midwife, health visitor, GP, whoever it is.

And then again, in terms of like how you communicate it, do you say it out loud?

Do you type it?

Do you write it down?

Me and my other half, if we ever want to have a serious conversation, we always just text each other because it just eliminates some of what can feel a little bit daunting.

So I don't know if you've got any more sort of thoughts on that, if you can recommend any specific places where people can go.

Yeah, I love that idea of, you know, identifying who's in your circle of support.

I think that's so helpful.

I also love the idea of writing things down because I think that it kind of slows the process down and it helps separate yourself from these thoughts as well.

And I think it helps separate you from the reaction.

So somebody can have their immediate reaction without you necessarily watching them have it.

And they can consider their response without, you know, it just, like you said, slows things down, slows the whole correspondence down a little bit.

In terms of, I think, the biggest fear, it sounds like, from the women that I've kind of spoken to in preparation for our chat, the biggest fear is turning to people like yourself or turning to GP or midwife, basically anybody that's got the potential connection to social services or anything like that.

So if somebody is feeling that actually these thoughts are becoming a bit overwhelming for them, they feel like they do want professional support, can you offer some reassurance about what that looks like from a kind of practical level?

If somebody does seek out support, what's the process?

What happens?

And what can they expect to kind of receive back?

Yeah, I mean, I think if you're listening today and you feel like you're struggling with your intrusive thoughts, so helpful things to think about or to consider either now as you're listening or with someone else ideally is thinking about the frequency of these thoughts, how often they're happening, the intensity of them, and how long they've been going on for.

So that can just be a few things for you to think about in terms of are they getting in the way of your ability to function and are they getting in the way of your ability to enjoy everyday life with your baby?

And I think if they are, then it is so important to speak to someone you trust, perhaps, as a first step, as we were saying.

And then, you know, speak to your GP, your health visitor.

Your GP really, if listeners are in the UK, is your gateway to support.

And it can be daunting to speak to a health professional, you know, as we're saying, there are real fears around sharing these kinds of thoughts.

I think what can be helpful is to understand that the GP's job is to really get a sense of the context for what's going on for you so that they can then find the best source of support for you.

There's more education and awareness raising to be done around these kinds of thoughts among health professionals, and that responses can be variable.

So I do understand that.

However, I think just understanding that the GP isn't there, you know, they're not judging you.

They really do just want to get the context for you.

And then they can discuss with you a referral to a psychologist, an NHS psychology service, see what's available in your area.

Some health visitors, particularly if you have a good relationship with them, they may offer listening visits.

The GP could also let you know about community support or relevant mental health charities that might be able to support you.

So going through the options of support with them, I think can be really helpful.

I've actually put a short leaflet about these kinds of thoughts on my website, where if you felt it was helpful, you could have a look at that leaflet and take it with you to your GP appointment to say, I think I've heard about these kinds of thoughts on a podcast and I think I'm experiencing them.

Maybe think ahead of time, one or two examples that you feel comfortable to share.

You know, so you're going armed with a bit of information if you like, and you could even rehearse the sorts of examples you wanted to share with them with someone else before you have that appointment.

I did also just want to say, Megan, just to add, that whilst these kinds of thoughts we're talking about today are very common and they're not clinically alarming, I think if you're having, if you're listening today and you're having any thoughts of hurting yourself, or your baby, then it's essential that you seek help immediately.

So that is either calling 999 or visiting A&E with someone that you trust, or you can get an on-the-day appointment with your GP.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you.

And I will share in our show notes, so if you're listening to the podcast and you want any of this, these resources or the support, I will put direct links in the show notes to anything that we talk about.

So if it's something that women are experiencing, but it's more just kind of bothersome and annoying rather than feeling kind of totally overwhelming, is there any kind of self-care, self-help techniques that they can be using?

Is there any way of slowing them down or making them less frequent?

Should we ignore them?

What can we do on a kind of day-to-day level to stop them, hopefully, from reaching a point where they feel too overwhelming for us?

Yeah, I think they definitely are.

And some quite simple things that can be done.

I understand that these kind of thoughts can be really frightening and paralyzing.

I think the first step really is understanding that it's the meaning that we give these thoughts.

It gives them power.

And the other thing is that because we talked about the intense emotions that can come with them, that anxiety can make you want to avoid or get rid of that thought, run away from that thought as quickly as you can.

The issue with this is that resisting these kinds of thoughts or trying to avoid them only increases their power and intensity.

So they just keep coming back again and again.

So I guess it's just understanding that the more that you can try and notice these kinds of thoughts.

So by this, you know, you could just simply, next time you have an unwanted thought like the ones we've been describing, you could just say to yourself, you know, hello there, harm thoughts.

You are simply a thought.

This experience doesn't mean anything bad about me.

I'm a good enough mom.

I'm safe and I'm okay.

And you could even, you know, something similar just to remind you that these thoughts don't mean anything bad about you.

And you can write that on a post-it note, put it on your fridge, put it up in your bedroom.

Another really nice one is just telling yourself gently, I am not my thoughts.

Really just helps lower the emotional temperature.

And as we were saying before, just separates you from your thoughts.

So you're kind of bringing them at arm's length.

I really like your idea of writing them down, if you know, if you feel that you can.

Really nice way of separating yourself from them.

But I think it's just, as we've touched on that process of stepping back from your thoughts, it just gives you more space to respond rather than react.

So you can then make a wise choice about how to respond.

So just noticing the thought, acknowledging it with kindness, and then trying to let it go.

I really like that.

And it interestingly really ties into, I know a lot of people listening will have joined us when they were pregnant for our hypnobirthing courses.

And one of the things that we do kind of at the beginning of a lot of the guided relaxations is that labelling things as thoughts.

And the thoughts we're talking about there aren't necessarily intrusive thoughts.

They're just literally any thought that, you know, when a thought pops into your head, in order to just kind of clear your mind and help you to relax, just letting go of the need to solve a thought.

So we talk about just labelling it as a thought and kind of a bit like passing traffic in your mind.

It comes and you just kind of allow it to go again.

And it sounds like that kind of thing would work really well for intrusive thoughts as well.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think any visualisation, you know, sometimes you can visualise surfing your thoughts or feelings, so they're like waves and you begin to learn that they may sort of peak in intensity as a wave does, but it will come back down again, as in, you know, the feelings that come with these thoughts won't last forever.

Yeah, absolutely.

I think that's really, I find those visualisations and different, just hearing people's different ways of managing any kind of emotions or thoughts that they have, I find, yeah, like a really helpful, tangible thing, I suppose.

I'm going to touch on this briefly because we're still kind of in the midst of it.

Hopefully this podcast will outlive COVID, but would you say that this has been intensified by the kind of current climate of lots of uncertainty, lots of isolation for families, for mothers?

Yeah, what would you say have you found from women that you're hearing from?

Is this something that is on the up due to COVID, or is it something that's kind of always just been in the background unspoken about?

Well, I mean, I think because these thoughts are associated with stress, so they're more likely to occur in the context of stress, and that includes external stress, and that very much includes stress related to the pandemic.

And I think, you know, it's a good question because COVID has brought up lots of anxiety around, you know, if you're pregnant, what does that mean for you?

What does that mean for the safety of the baby?

Then having a new baby in the pandemic, lots of new moms understandably have worries about being in contact with people.

And it really, I think it brings up, I guess, the need to have really clear boundaries about what fits for you and what kind of boundaries you want to put in place for you and your family.

And of course, putting down boundaries can bring discomfort, so it's not always an easy thing.

But I think the answer to your question is yes.

The stress that's been brought up with the pandemic means that our brains are on, you know, it dials up our threat system in our brains.

And so we're on high alert.

As we were saying earlier, we're on high alert anyway in the early postpartum period.

So I guess, you know, it does just intensify that.

I guess just to pick up on what you were saying about it's, you know, when we have these kinds of thoughts, trying to respond rather than react and understand that this is our brain's way of trying to keep us safe and to problem solve for us, as in, you know, I must keep my baby safe.

What do I need to do?

And then you can get hooked into that spiral and actually just understanding that, you know, you can even thank your brain when you say, thank you brain for trying to protect me.

You know, and you can say, I'm having the thought that, and then you name the thought.

And even just saying at the beginning, I'm having the thought that helps to separate you from the thought.

You know, it's a nice technique that you can try and see how it goes for you.

Yeah, these practical things, practical tips are so, so helpful.

Thank you.

I think the final couple of questions that came up.

So first of all would be, is it something that is, you sort of mentioned that we're on that kind of high alert, particularly when babies are very, very small.

Is it something that tends to be heightened and experience more in the first, I don't know, months, years after a baby's born?

And then does it tend to tail off or are we still there with them as teenagers going, what if they, what if I, as time goes by?

Well, I think we need to do more research.

We really do.

We need to do more research into these kinds of thoughts.

My experience clinically is that, well, I'm actually based on my research, is that these kinds of thoughts do tend to fade with time.

So, you know, they definitely peak in intensity in the first couple of months postpartum.

They also have been found, you know, and that's when there's more crying and crying is a trigger.

And, you know, that's a source of stress, understandably.

So they tend to peak in the first couple of months after you've had your baby.

And I guess from working clinically, you know, they do, these kind of anxiety-driven thoughts do continue, but they've become different.

And I certainly, I remember hearing Karen Kleinman say, she's done a lot of work around these kinds of thoughts.

She's based in the Postpartum Stress Center in the US.

She's got grown-up children, but she says, you know, I still have these what-if thoughts.

And my children, you know, I think they're, in their teens or early twenties, and, you know, my children are now at primary school, but they, I think, so I think the answer is they go up and down, and that's in the context of whatever's going on for us, whatever stresses we are, we have going on in our lives.

And also the developmental challenges that our babies, they'll always go through, that they're going through.

Does that make sense?

So I think they go up and down.

No, it absolutely does.

But I think it can be reassuring to know that maybe after the first few months and then the first few years, they kind of fade and maybe come in peaks and troughs rather than feel quite so constant.

Would you say that?

Have I interpreted that right?

Absolutely.

I think that the, they definitely, and the mums I interviewed, they found that they faded with time as they grew more confident in their position of power and responsibility.

And on actually on what you've just said in terms of that growing confidence, one of the questions that came through from a couple of mums who have just one baby at the moment was, is it similar to something like postnatal depression where if you've experienced it once, it makes you potentially more susceptible to experience it again or not?

I think it depends.

It depends how you made sense of them when you first experienced them.

I mean, you know, these are anxious thoughts about our babies.

Parenting is an anxiety provoking time.

But if you say you have really experienced them a lot with your first baby and you're able to speak to someone about them, you know, maybe you speak to a friend about them who's had similar experiences.

Maybe you speak to a therapist about these kinds of thoughts.

But you learn, you make sense of them, you know, so you have that understanding around them.

You understand that they don't mean anything bad about you as a mum.

And you learn ways of coping with them.

So you learn to respond rather than react.

As we were talking about earlier.

Then I think that when say you have your next baby, you know, they're very common, so they're likely to occur.

Then you have ways of dealing with them and managing them because you have that understanding.

Yeah, perfect.

Thank you so much.

And the sort of final question on this then would be just around kind of fathers, co-parents, people that haven't given birth.

Is there, you know, I don't imagine there's loads, but is there much research on their experience of this?

Is it something that anybody can, we've said that intrusive thoughts on the whole are something that the whole population can experience, but in terms of relationship with a baby, what do we know about the co-parent or father's experience of that?

Yeah, it's a great question.

I'm glad you asked.

There is very little research, but the research that has been done shows that dads do get them too, to a slightly lesser degree than mums, but they do get them.

Which makes sense, I think.

Dads, just like mums, will have anxieties and fears around the safety of their baby and their position of power and responsibility, all of which tap into experiencing these kinds of thoughts.

Yeah, absolutely, and it's just that learning curve and that new sort of responsibility that you have for the entire existence of a tiny human being, it's a lot sometimes, so it does, the whole thing makes sense, really.

So tying on nicely, I suppose, from particularly the kind of self-help tools and techniques and things that we've talked about, I'd love to just chat a little bit about your book that you have written, Mindful New Mum, A Mind-Body Approach to the Highs and Lows of Motherhood.

So why did you write this book?

Well, I was asked to write it, which felt like a huge honour and a responsibility.

But yeah, I've wanted to write something that was accessible and warm and reassuring for new mums, understanding that mums are tired, they haven't got loads of time.

So I hope that it's for anyone who has thought, you know, am I up to the job?

Does anyone else feel like this?

I hope it normalises and names some of those intense feelings that come with the early postpartum period and bring some understanding as well around those brain, body and relationship changes.

And what do you mean by a mind-body approach?

What kind of thing can people expect?

So I wanted to make it very holistic.

I think the mind and body, they're so linked, aren't they?

And so I think this book hopefully will give you the practical psychological strategies to soothe yourself, to look after yourself and your baby and understanding of why experiencing certain emotions like anxiety and anger doesn't make you a bad mum.

So I've included some understanding, some psychological ideas around that, but also practical, everyday meditations and visualizations that you can do and you can dip into.

And there's also information on, there's nutritional advice, natural remedies.

So the idea that now everyone is, I think parenting is a lot more isolated than it was, but these are natural remedies that maybe grandmothers would have passed down.

So to give that sense of ideas that are non-medical that can also provide relief and be really helpful.

And then there's lots of movement-based ideas, so postnatal yoga and baby massage as well.

Amazing.

I just wish it had been out a year ago when I had my second baby, because I think this is exactly the kind of thing that I needed.

And there just doesn't seem, in my experience, to be a book of this kind.

There's a lot of how to look after a baby books.

There's a lot of kind of postnatal exercise, postnatal, this is what you're supposed to eat books, but nothing that kind of combines the two.

And I think particularly if people listening have done a kind of hypnobirthing approach to their births and their pregnancies, hopefully they will be familiar with that incredible connection that the mind has with its body and how the two things kind of interlink.

So I think it will be, it sounds like a really great follow on.

But I think hopefully by the time this podcast goes out, it will be available.

So I will again stick a link in the show notes where you can get hold of it.

Do tell us, where can people buy it?

Well, thank you for your kind words about it, Megan.

And I hope you like it when you do have a look at it and when copies do arrive, which is quite exciting.

So people can get it from most book selling sites.

It's published by Dawling Kindersley and it's being published worldwide.

So you should be able to get it in the US and in Australia and New Zealand and so on, as well as the UK.

But Amazon will have it waterstones.

Perfect.

Thank you very much.

So we ask everybody one question at the end of the podcast.

And it's this.

If you could gift a pregnant or a new mum or parent one thing, what would it be and why?

Oh, that's a good question.

I think I would gift a new mum the understanding or a pregnant mum, because these thoughts can occur in pregnancy too.

The understanding that these kinds of thoughts that we've been talking about today, they don't mean that you're a bad mum.

And I guess just trying to let yourself off the hook of parenting perfectly and really having good enough as your benchmark.

I think that there's a lot, you know, maybe listening to this today, you're thinking, well, good enough.

That just means settling.

But I think good enough mothering is so important, not only for your own sanity and self-esteem, but also it's really important for your baby's development too.

So I think really trying to connect with good enough and really trying to build in space for you and to look after yourself on this mothering journey.

Perfect.

Thank you so, so much.

That has been hugely insightful and I'm sure a lot of people will have been able to hopefully take a lot of reassurance from this episode, either for right now or for in the future.

So if people have enjoyed hearing what you've got to say as well as buying your book, which I will link to in the show notes, where else can people find you?

So I write a lot on Instagram so you can find me at underscore Dr.

Boyd and I have a website which has a whole section on these kinds of thoughts so do have a look at that if you would like to as well.

Perfect.

Thank you so much for joining me.

Thank you so much for having me.

I've loved chatting with you.

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