I Had Intrusive Thoughts About My Baby
And I couldn't make them stop. On postpartum intrusive thoughts, why they happen, and what actually helps
I am a perinatal psychiatric NP. I have worked with hundreds of moms who have had intrusive thoughts. A few weeks after having my second baby, I still had to put my own baby down and leave the room because I couldn’t make mine stop.
It happened at the dinner table with our first family of four dinner. My baby was wrapped to my chest, warm and sleeping. My toddler was performing a skit mid-meal. Classic. And even with both of them safe in front of me, I felt a wave of deep emotion and saw flashes of something bad happening to them.
I knew the clinical name. I knew the loop. I knew exactly why it was happening.
I still could not make it stop.
I asked my husband to take the baby. I went to the other room and lay down. I kept repeating to myself: a thought is just a thought. A thought is just a thought.
It took a while for my nervous system to catch up to what I already knew.
Understanding intrusive thoughts does not always make them feel smaller, or prevent them, or stop them immediately. You can know everything about them and still be frightened by them. It is common and it is not your fault.
What they are
Intrusive thoughts are unwanted thoughts, images, urges, or “what if” scenarios that are “sticky” in your mind. They are called intrusive because that is exactly what they are: uninvited, distressing, and completely inconsistent with what you actually want. It’s a thought that makes you cringe.
In postpartum, they tend to attach to the things you care about most. Your baby’s safety. Your ability to care for them. The fear of something going wrong. They may sound like: What if I hurt them? What if I drop them? What if this thought means something about me?
They feel horrifying because they go directly against what you want. That is actually part of the picture. A scary, unwanted thought that feels completely out of character is different from a wish, an intention, or a plan.
There is also a line between an intrusive thought and postpartum psychosis, which is a different illness entirely. Postpartum psychosis is a medical emergency that needs immediate support. I write more detail on it here. It isn't just an intrusive thought, it can also come with not sleeping for days, losing touch with what's real, and symptoms that can shift within hours. The intrusive thoughts we're talking about here are different. They're distressing, but they typically ease with the tools below, not emergency intervention. I wrote about that distinction here.
Far more moms have the intrusive thoughts than you would ever guess. Research shows between 70 and 100 percent of new mothers experience intrusive thoughts — many of them including thoughts of harm. Most moms are too ashamed to say them out loud. Many don’t tell their provider because they are afraid of being judged, or afraid of what might happen if they do. That fear makes complete sense. It is also what keeps them alone with the thought for much longer than they have to be. Keeping them quiet is what keeps them sticky. It’s what can lead to worsening of symptoms too.
Why Intrusive Thoughts happen
Before having a baby, stairs were just stairs. Bathwater was just bathwater. A blanket was just a blanket.
After having a baby, your brain starts mapping everything for risk. Because suddenly you are responsible for keeping a tiny, vulnerable person alive. Your nervous system knows that even when you are exhausted, healing, hormonally shifted, and running on almost nothing.
Some of that scanning is protective. The “mama bear” part of your brain doing its job.
But sometimes the alarm system overshoots. Your brain starts treating possibilities like probabilities. It throws out a worst-case image, your body reacts before you have time to make sense of it, and the panic makes the thought feel important.
That same alarm system is also what drives postpartum anxiety more broadly, the racing thoughts, the checking, the inability to settle even when everything is fine. I wrote about that here.
Intrusive thoughts can worsen when you aren’t getting enough sleep. A depleted brain has a harder time filtering thoughts and harder time letting them pass. For most moms, with support, they become less frequent and less intense over time.
That is how it becomes a loop.
Scary thought. Panic.
Checking. Googling. Asking for reassurance. Avoiding. Replaying the thought in your mind to try to neutralize it. Brief relief.
The thought comes back.
The things you do to feel better make complete sense. Checking the baby, Googling at 2am, asking your partner the same question again, avoiding whatever triggered it. Those are attempts to feel safe. And they give you relief for a minute.
But they teach your brain that the thought was an emergency. That the behaviors are what make you safe. So the thought comes back. And your brain needs certainty again.
The goal is not to make every scary thought disappear. The goal is to have strategies to help dissipate the thought when they appear.
What can help
Start by naming it: That was an intrusive thought. A thought is just a thought. I do not have to do anything about it right now.
Then notice what you want to do next. What urge do you have to quiet the thought? Google? Check again? Ask for reassurance? That urge is usually part of the loop. Try delaying it just a few minutes. You are not forcing yourself through panic. You are showing your brain that discomfort can rise and fall without you having to act on it every time.
That night at the dinner table, what actually helped was simpler and more effective for me.
I called it for what it was. I knew I was exhausted. I knew my nervous system needed a reset. I reminded myself that my brain was working through being a mom of two for the first time — testing out fears and worst-cases, even the ones that were not realistic. Being depleted makes your brain work differently. The mantra of saying “ a thought is just a thought” helped not because it made the thought disappear, but because it was grounding. It brought me back to what was actually true.
Hand the baby off if you can. Lie down. Step outside for 2 minutes. Let your nervous system settle. Tell your partner you are having a scary thought and that you need support.
Put both feet flat on the floor. Feel the chair under you, the baby's weight if you're holding them. That's not going to make the thought disappear, but it pulls your nervous system out of the loop and back into the room you're actually in. It grounds you in the reality of the moment.
I share more of these grounding tools in real time on Instagram.
When to reach out
If intrusive thoughts are interfering with your daily life — if it feels like it’s taking away from you enjoying your baby, making it hard to leave the house, spending excessive amount of time checking, avoiding, or seeking reassurance… reach out.
My general rule of thumb is that if you think you should reach out, you probably should. There is no wrong time.
You do not have to wait until things feel unbearable.
Effective treatment exists for intrusive thoughts.
Therapy, especially exposure and response prevention, or ERP, can make a real difference for intrusive thoughts and postpartum OCD. One important thing to know: traditional talk therapy that tries to explore the meaning behind the thought can sometimes make OCD symptoms worse by giving the thought more weight. When you reach out, ask specifically for a provider trained in ERP.
Medication is also an option for some moms. Finding someone trained in perinatal mental health means you do not have to explain yourself from scratch.
You can start with: “I’m having intrusive thoughts and they are scaring me.” That is enough. You don’t need to diagnose yourself, you just need to get to the right support.
More importantly, you don’t have to go through it alone.
If you are in crisis or need immediate support right now, click here.
That night at the dinner table, I knew my brain was starting to play tricks on me. The thoughts felt sticky. I was depleted, running on too little sleep and overwhelmed. Naming the thought and lying down for a few minutes helped. Talking about it with my husband helped. Making sure I flagged it with my therapist was important.
If yours keeps looping no matter how many times you name it, or try to fight it, it’s a sign to reach out for support.
I knew what my thoughts were. I still had to put the baby down, leave the room, ground myself, and ask for support. A thought is just a thought. Knowing that does not always stop the fear in the moment, but it can help me get back to a grounded place.
Have you ever had a thought you couldn't shake? Leave a comment or reply to this email…. I read every one.
Naming the thought helps in the moment. But if you want the deeper toolkit, the guide behind this one covers what ERP therapy actually looks like, the exact line between intrusive thoughts and postpartum psychosis, and what to say to your provider so you're not starting from scratch. That's in the full This Is Motherhood library.
Thank you for bringing such compassion and clarity to an experience so many mothers endure in silence. The distinction between an unwanted thought and an intention is especially important, because shame can make intrusive thoughts feel far more dangerous and isolating than they are. I also appreciate that you do not reduce healing to “thinking positively,” but include rest, grounding, practical support, appropriate treatment, and honest disclosure. No mother should have to prove she is struggling enough before she is allowed to ask for help.
Every postpartum mom should read this article. The combination of your expertise & lived experience is so powerful & validating so those of us who have gone through this.