What could we be missing when it comes to the connection between poor social support and postpartum mood disorders?

A new book, Hannah ’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying The Birth Dearth , is published by Catherine Ruth Pakaluk .

The author interviewed dozens of women about their decisions to have five or more children.

One of her interviewees cited a cultural lack of support for new mothers as an obstacle to welcoming more children..

Medically, we know that pregnancy is a time of increasingly frequent interactions between OB-GYN or midwife and mother.

Yet every woman, regardless of risk, is scheduled for just one follow-up visit, six full weeks after birth.

We must relearn to “mother the mother” as author Heng Ou advocated in The First 40 Days : The Essential Art of Nourishing the New Mother.