Trying to help

[Susan5667]

My friend had a baby 7 months ago and her behavior seems abnormal.  She wanted to stay home, but her husband wouldn't let her, so he comprised with going back to work part time.  She is so consumed with the baby no other adult seems to matter.  There have been several family members (adults) in her home and she won't even sit down for a dinner with them at the table.  She just plays with the baby.  She watches her sitter on a nanny cam all day when she is at work.  She doesn't want to go out with anyone, every waking moment with the baby she is doing flash cards or playing or talking with the baby.  The one time she did go out with her husband and 3 other couples she did not speak to any of them, she just text on her phone the whole time.  She has lashed out at her husband, her father, her mother and her brother for trivial things like ringing the doorbell when the baby is sleeping.  She gets so mad at her husband because she has to go back to work that she bans her siblings from talking to him and the one time her brother did she lashed out at him and told him that she was going to reverse the fact that he was the baby's godfather.  At one point in her life we learned that she had an eating disorder and did not like to eat.  She has gotten extremely angry with her baby on two different occasions when he wouldn't nurse to the point of yelling and screaming at him.  Then she is as sweet as can be to the baby the rest of the time.  She slept in the baby's room for the first 5 months and ignored her husband.  We have asked her to go see someone to get help and she refuses, in fact, she is not capable of sitting down and discussing any of this like a mature adult.  Her husband is a very calm, logical person who seems to be enabling the situation by not dealing with it.    I believe she has had some type of eating disorder in the past where she did not eat much but I do not know to what degree.  What does she have and what should he do?

[Jaquta]

Try post postpartum psychosis!  Sounds like there may be other issues as well.
You may need to intervene anyway for the baby's sake (and safety).

J

[Roger Gould, M.D.]

This is a very serious problem and the best thing you can do is to mobilize whomever you can to pressure her to get help....there is actually some danger to be considered, so get her or her husband into the hands of a professional.

[zack32]

Sounds like a form of PPD. (postpartum depression) You have to be careful with PPD because many people involved like to think it will go away. It doesn't and medication is needed most of the time. I believe with medication it will eventually go away. I am not a doctor so please help her to see the importance of talking to a doctor about it herself and to be honest with the doctor.