Life changes dramatically with the advent of a new child. While it is understandable that stress levels may be high and negative emotions common during the adjustment to being on call 24 hours a day, new mothers typically hide these feelings from friends and family members. They mistakenly believe that grateful, loving thoughts and emotions are the only appropriate ones to admit to when dealing with the challenges of new motherhood.

Many new moms fear they will be thought of as unfit mothers if other people knew the truth about their feelings. They may never ask for help because they don’t have a baseline sense of what is actually normal and what’s not.

The “baby blues” are experienced by most women during the first two weeks after giving birth. Hormone levels go through huge fluctuations before settling down and normalizing. During this time, new moms often have a hard time concentrating, and find themselves to be more forgetful than usual, anxious, tired, tearful, irritable and moody. The good news is that the “baby blues” tend to resolve without any external intervention.

Unfortunately, the symptoms of “baby blues” don’t always pass on their own. They may last longer and be more severe, including stronger mood swings, lack of interest in the baby or self, lowered daily functioning, hopelessness, depression, feelings of inadequacy and vulnerability. It is estimated that anywhere from 1 in 5 to 1 in 10 postpartum women experience these symptoms of postpartum depression. Women with PPD may feel a little crazy, but they are still sane.

What if the experiences are even more difficult? Is a mother crazy if she has panic attacks, visions of bad things happening to her baby without being able to stop them, obsessions about germs or cleanliness, or other unreasonable fears? Probably not. Women with these symptoms are likely to have postpartum obsessive-compulsive disorder.

What about the women who get sensationalized on the news, the ones who think their babies are from the devil? We’ve all heard stories about new mothers who think they were told to hurt themselves or their babies. Can these women be sane?

This is the most severe end of the postpartum mood disorder spectrum, and where the break in sanity occurs. Fortunately, only 1 or 2 out of every thousand postpartum women will go through this disorder. Women with postpartum psychosis experience dangerious delusions, often in conjunction with visual and auditory hallucinations. They require immediate hospitalization in order to receive the necessary medical attention, and are not safe to care for their babies until the disorder is properly treated.

Here’s a helpful way to assess the situation: If a new mother has the presence of mind to be concerned about her thoughts and emotions, if she is worried about the well being of herself and her child, she is quite likely sane. All the symptoms you’ve just read about are absolutely treatable. Let’s remove the stigma from postpartum mood disorders and encourage new moms to be honest about their experiences. Help is available now.