Online EMDR: Drug-Free, Natural Treatment for Depression During Pregnancy
Depression during pregnancy is more common than a lot of people think. Unfortunately though, women who experience depression during pregnancy don’t have a lot of safe options for treatment in conventional medicine. The anti-depressants that are prescribed by doctors and psychiatrists are generally not safe for use during pregnancy. So, how can you treat depression during pregnancy at home? There are, in reality, a number of ways to reduce symptoms of depression during pregnancy without drugs, but before we talk about how to get rid of depression during pregnancy, let’s first explain why these treatments work.
Trauma and Depression: How They’re Related
Most people, including psychiatrists, psychologists, and doctors, are completely in the dark about how trauma or “incomplete actions” cause depression and other forms of mental illness. Trauma, after all, is a word that has been strongly associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder / PTSD to the exclusion of all other mental health problems. But “trauma”, by definition, is not always about something that is strikingly and unequivocally “traumatic”. Rather, trauma is not necessarily something that happens to you, but rather something that is stored inside of your body, unable to release itself when you are unable to complete an important action.
Have you ever been with a group of friends talking and you started talking about something that was really important to you and you got interrupted? Maybe you sat there in the group, waiting for someone to pick up your story and urge you to continue with it…to complete it. But if no one acknowledges that you were interrupted, you sit there with a feeling of “incompletion”. The story wants to be told and you feel it sitting there inside your body or inside your mind, nagging at you for release.
Alas, if you aren’t given an opportunity to finish your story, you may even go home with this feeling of “incompletion” hours later.
Trauma is made up of situations in life that involve this same type of “incompletion”. If you were at war and you saw a fellow soldier, a friend, get killed, you may have that same sense of incompletion as a “felt sense” in the body, of wanting to lunge or maybe push the friend out of harm’s way. Perhaps you and the friend-soldier were in the midst of joking with each other about something. The joke may have not completed itself and this stays with you, sometimes for decades, as a part of a bottleneck of incomplete actions.
Pregnancy can be a source of a lot of trauma. For example, while women often willingly crawl onto the doctor’s table to receive cervical exams that are sometimes physically painful and violating, they restrain themselves a lot through these doctor’s visits. This type of self-restraint can lead to a buildup of trauma in the autonomic nervous system.Though some women are able to literally shake off the trauma (shaking and trembling is actually one of the main mechanisms through which our bodies try to release trauma), other women have a bottleneck of trauma that causes certain challenging experiences that require restraint during pregnancy to buildup in the autonomic nervous system.
Literally everyone on earth, even tiny newborn babies who have just recently endured the trauma of being born, carries at least a little bit of trauma – the unresolved, incomplete actions that mattered. Our bodies were designed to release, or rather integrate this trauma by passing it energetically out of the “felt sense” of the body into the right brain and then to the left brain where these incomplete actions become meaningful. When we are able to move trauma out of the body and the right brain (where these actions are stored as “symbols” rather than as the factual memory-based story of what happened), we integrate this material and it moves into a storehouse of wisdom that we carry with us rather than being stored as negative emotions and toxic thoughts.
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How to Deal with Depression in Pregnancy
It’s quite common for women to experience depression during pregnancy and there are ways to treat it. Below are some antidepressant apps and drug-free ways to treat depression during pregnancy as well as antidepressant herbs that are safe while gestating.
Drug-Free Ways to Treat Depression During Pregnancy
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing / EMDR Online
EMDR is an at-home treatment for depression during pregnancy that works by helping the right brain communicate with the left brain more fluently so that trauma and “incomplete actions” can be properly processed and integrated. One of the hallmark features of depression are toxic thoughts that happen when the right brain and the left brain “disagree” about something. The right brain represents the “felt sense” or the way that the incomplete action felt in the body – the emotions and what the experience felt like symbolically (e.g. betrayal, vulnerability, disorientation, etc.). In contrast, the left brain represents the thoughts and facts of a situation with no regard for how it felt to be in the situation. As such, the left brain can be tyrannical at times. If the left brain is not able to make a strong connection with the right brain regarding a specific trauma, it may begin to speak out with toxic thoughts that people experience like a voice inside their head – their own voice (except when psychosis becomes a part of the picture – psychosis is also a manifestation of trauma) – saying negative things about themselves or about other people.
EMDR helps to move a trauma from right brain to left brain and back again. It is an intentional effort that a person makes on behalf of the parts of them that have to carry these incomplete actions. Normally the brain and body do these same eye movements naturally unless there’s an overload of trauma that impedes the process. When we are not overloaded with too many incomplete actions / trauma, our bodies are made to go into Rapid Eye Movement (REM) states during sleep in order to process these incomplete actions so that they can be properly integrated and “released”. I like to think of EMDR like a conference table where two factions meet under the guidance of a wiser Core Self that knows that these two factions need to come to a suitable resolution. Often people sleep much better after they begin working with EMDR because the bottleneck of trauma begins to release and integrate naturally during REM sleep at night.
Click here to do a free trial of EMDR online.
DreamLight.app Guided Meditation and Brain Entrainment
The DreamLight.app is a guided meditation and brain entrainment tool. It works by entraining the brain to specific brainwave states that are conducive to the release of trauma. For example, moving from theta to alpha brainwave states allows the right brain to release trauma into the left brain for processing and integration. Using the DreamLight.app, guided meditation can be done along with brainwave entrainment at the same time or at separate times.
While brainwave entrainment can be useful as a tool to facilitate the movement of trauma from deep states of unconsciousness to conscious awareness for release, guided meditation can help you work more intentionally with unconscious material. Guided meditation supports the process of becoming aware of trauma and working to release specific types of trauma while experiencing a sense of relaxation and safety.
Click here to learn more about the DreamLight.app, a guided meditation and brain-entrainment tool.
Massage for Depression During Pregnancy
Craniosacral Therapy
Craniosacral therapy is a very gentle type of massage that is safe during pregnancy. Craniosacral therapists move energy from the bottom level of the spine up to the cranium for release. Different craniosacral therapists have different techniques that they use but most use gentle adjustments to release pressure on the cranial nerves that feed the autonomic nervous system to release trauma in a manner similar to how EMDR works. Craniosacral therapy can sometimes take the same methods that work to release trauma using EMDR one step further by also readjusting the topmost vertebrae to release pressure on the cranial nerves from the topmost vertebrae that may be out of place.
Ideally, if you choose to work with craniosacral therapy to treat depression during pregnancy, you should use the DreamLight.app or EMDR every 2-3 days in between sessions. EMDR can be used to address toxic thoughts and memories that may arise between craniosacral therapy appointments.
Herbs for Depression During Pregnancy
The following pregnancy-friendly herbs could be combined with the anti-depression apps and therapies that we talk about above to target depression during pregnancy from more than one angle. The herbs listed below are safe for use during gestation and they can be combined together and taken according to the instructions for each as an herbal remedy for depression during pregnancy.
Motherwort/ Leonurus cardiaca
Motherwort is an herbal remedy for depression that’s safe for use during pregnancy. This herb works through the heart chakra to heal matters that impact feelings of safety or lack thereof in the world combined with heartbreak. Pregnancy often challenges relationships in new ways and Motherwort is an herb that helps women weather these challenges. Click here to read more about how to use motherwort during pregnancy.
Administer 2-8 grams per day as an infusion or 2-18 mL as a tincture.
Click here to buy Motherwort Extract.
Passionflower / Passiflora incarnata
Passionflower can be used to increase REM sleep during pregnancy which facilitates the release of trauma. Getting deep sleep during pregnancy can be an issue that contributes to feelings of depression during the day. Take passionflower at night about an hour before bedtime as an herbal remedy for depression during pregnancy.
Click here to read more about how to use passionflower as an herb for depression during pregnancy.
Administer 1-2 grams by infusion at night about 1 hour before bedtime or administer 1.5 to 6 mL as a tincture.
Click here to buy Passionflower Extract.
Lavender / Lavandula angustifolia
Lavender is a pregnancy-friendly herb that works by rebalancing the autonomic nervous system. It works through a different mechanism of action than Motherwort. As such, can be valuable to combine lavender with motherwort and passionflower.
Administer 2-6 grams in an infusion or 2-12 mL as a tincture daily. Lavender combines well with rosemary as an antidepressant.
Click here to buy Lavender Extract.
Rosemary / Rosmarinus officinalis
Rosemary is an herbal antidepressant that’s safe during pregnancy. Combine it with loose leaf lavender and motherwort during the day to create a more powerful herbal combination treatment for depression. Use the leaves and young twigs of the rosemary plant for best results. Take 2-4 grams of the infusion daily OR 2-5 mL of the tincture per day.
Click here to buy Rosemary Extract.
Lemon Balm / Melissa officinalis
Lemon Balm is an important herbal remedy for depression during pregnancy, but this herb also works to prevent and treat gestational diabetes naturally. It can also be used to treat and prevent pre-eclampsia as well. Lemon balm is a good herb to consume with during pregnancy even if you don’t have depression. But as an herbal antidepressant, lemon balm works in part by stabilizing blood sugar levels in the body to prevent sugar crashes that can lead to depression during pregnancy.
Click here to buy Lemon Balm Extract.
Nutritional Supplements to Treat Depression Naturally During Pregnancy
Lithium Orotate
Lithium orotate is the natural salt of lithium (as differentiated from synthetic, pharmaceutical salts of lithium including lithium carbonate and lithium chloride). Administer 5 to 20 mg twice daily (up to 40 mg per day) for depression during pregnancy, bipolar disorder, and also anxiety. Lithium orotate can be administered along with the herbs for depression during pregnancy that we list above. Combine lithium orotate and the herbal remedies for depression with Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing / EMDR. As an antidepressant for pregnancy, this protocol will not only improve your mood and mental well-being, but it will also heal your heart and help you release what no longer serves you.
Click here to buy The Natural Women’s Health Guide to Pregnancy.
