"You Are Not a Failure"

A psychologist's mantra for new moms

Photo by Jenna Norman on Unsplash

Aimee David first encountered the conflict that divides American mothers 11 years ago. During her first pregnancy, she signed up for a childbirth education class led by a doula. The message was empowering, David recalls, but “it was very negative against the medical establishment and the use of medication.”

David didn’t tell her classmates that her husband was a family medicine physician who delivered babies at their local hospital in Southern California. She understood that he operated in a different world, where mothers came in with a birth plan and the nurses rolled their eyes. “Let’s schedule the C-section now,” he heard them say.

David wasn’t sure which world was hers. She knew she didn’t want pain medication, but chose to see an obstetrician and deliver her baby in the hospital. After 24 hours of labor, her progress stalled. She asked for an epidural, took a nap, and then pushed for three-and-a-half hours until her daughter was born.

Later, she learned that she was lucky. Her husband said laboring mothers were not usually allowed to push that long, and if he hadn’t been in the room, she probably would have had a C-section. But at the time, she felt ashamed. She’d used an epidural, and feared the people in her childbirth class would look down on her. This division—the hostility and distrust between people who advocate for natural vs. medical birth— saddened her. Why couldn’t a woman’s autonomy and a hospital’s medical support both be honored? “I feel like my role is to not demonize either side,” she says.

David now has three children, ages 3, 7, and 10. As a psychologist who sees patients at Ventura County Medical Center and in private practice, she works to empower women who are struggling with impossible expectations before and after giving birth. “You are not a failure, but rather the system around mothers after birth is a failure,” she tells them.

After her first daughter was born, “one of the hardest things was the isolation,” David says. She was grateful to find a monthly support group for new parents. It normalized the challenges of caring for a newborn, and made her feel less clueless and alone.

David thinks that social connection is key to supporting new mothers—especially those with fewer resources. Roughly 78 percent of new moms who show signs of postpartum depression don’t get the care they need to recover, according to a 2015 study in the journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. Black mothers are twice as likely as white mothers to suffer from mental health conditions, but half as likely to receive care, according to the nonpartisan Maternal Mental Health Leadership Alliance.

Since many parents can’t afford or find time to attend individual therapy, David says support groups are more practical. At her group, they joked that everyone took turns arriving late with a crying baby. “Nice job!” her friends would say when the exhausted parent arrived, because just showing up was enough.