CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Postpartum women who experienced simultaneous physical pain and depression said that these symptoms compromised their ability to care for themselves and their infant, their mother-infant bonds and relationships with others, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign found in a recent study.
Health and kinesiology professor Sandraluz Lara-Cinisomo conducted the study with former undergraduate student Anjali Patel, current undergraduate Audrey M. Schissler and graduate student Melany E. Romero. The researchers interviewed a racially and ethnically diverse group of 20 women, all of whom had experienced or were currently experiencing postpartum pain and depressive symptoms. The team said the findings, published in the Canadian Journal of Nursing Research, point to a need to better inform women and their families about the postpartum pain and challenges they may encounter, as well as provide comprehensive monitoring, assessment and support services throughout the first year after childbirth.
According to those in the study, their postpartum pain adversely affected their ability to care for, bond with and breastfeed their infants and the amount of energy that they had available for self-care.
“There are expectations that mothers should be happy about motherhood, and that idea often glosses over the difficulties that they have to face when it comes to childbirth,” Romero said.
“What often happens is that new moms are dealing with a lot of competing demands, and they feel like they have to endure much of it, that their own needs are secondary — including their physical and mental health needs after childbirth,” Lara-Cinisomo said. “I would like to see more conversations regarding what to do and what resources are available if women are having problems that are affecting their functioning.”
Although postpartum depression and pain often co-occur, health care systems frequently assess them in isolation, according to the study. Acknowledging the complexities of these overlapping conditions and examining their interactions is essential to developing integrated care strategies that better support women’s recovery and well-being, the team said.
Potential participants were recruited from the local public health department and through weekly announcements to university faculty and staff members. Those eligible to participate in the study were between the ages of 18 and 45, had delivered a child within the past year and experienced postpartum pain, depression or depressive symptoms. Individuals with pre-existing pain disorders such as fibromyalgia, substance abuse problems or severe psychiatric conditions such as bipolar disorder were excluded from the study.
Participants completed an online background questionnaire and engaged in a 60-minute phone interview in which they discussed their post-childbirth pain, depression and depressive symptoms; the effects on them and their ability to care for their infant; and the resources they needed. Nine participants said they currently had pain and depressive symptoms, while 11 women said they formerly experienced these symptoms, according to the study.
The most common cause of postpartum pain was caesarean delivery, the team found. In addition, women in the study experienced pain from tears or lesions, abdominal cramping and back, hip, breast and vaginal pain. Most participants reported they were in severe or very severe pain constantly for two weeks or longer that slowed their pace or response time in caring for their infant — and these limitations took a toll on the women’s mental health as well, exacerbating feelings of sadness, depression or inadequacy when they could not accomplish all of the tasks they wanted or needed to perform.
“Also, as time goes on, pain and emotions experienced during postpartum can compound into greater challenges that may make it harder for one to seek help, especially if they start experiencing the sadness, anxiety months after birth,” Patel said.
Among those whose postpartum pain persisted longer than expected, “(these patients) might think that their healing process is not considered normal or it’s not going as planned. Everyone’s experiences of pain is different, and while some women’s pain subsided shortly after giving birth, others continued to feel pain for months afterwards,” Romero said.
Schissler said another big takeaway from the study was that many women expressed the desire for information and easier access to resources, such as home visits from health care providers, or for mental health treatment to be integrated into postpartum plans. “The mental or physical health care was something that they had to seek out themselves — and that was why they felt they didn't have the support,” Schissler said.
However, when some women reflected on their postpartum challenges, they said these difficult experiences helped them realize their own strength and resilience, the researchers said.
In discussing the resources needed to help postpartum women and their families, patients emphasized the need for greater information and education about pain — particularly after C-section deliveries — and mental health issues such as postpartum depression and anxiety. Women also emphasized to the team the importance of having a supportive community around them with whom they could comfortably discuss concerns or problems without feelings of stigma or discrimination.
To better support women who experience both planned C-sections and are at greater risks of postpartum depression, Lara-Cinisomo and her team developed a virtual non-pharmacological intervention called Maternal Mindfulness to Prevent Depression and Reduce Postpartum Pain.
“It's a three- to five-minute self-guided mindfulness intervention that is delivered through mobile devices for eight weeks,” said Lara-Cinisomo, who coordinates and leads the Laboratory for Emotion and Stress Assessment in the College of Applied Health Sciences. “Patients’ depressive and pain symptoms are tracked before and after the intervention. The goal is to make the intervention standard care for women who deliver by C-section and develop a system that tracks patients’ elevated pain and depressive symptoms, which would trigger a notification to their health care providers so they could intervene during the first eight-week post-cesarean recovery when moms can’t just get up and go.”
To assess the intervention’s feasibility and acceptability with patients, the team is organizing a pilot test with a racially diverse group of 20 women who speak English or Spanish. Along with the intervention’s potential benefits for the mothers’ mental and physical health, that study will explore whether using the intervention has beneficial effects on mother-infant bonding, Lara-Cinisomo said.
Canadian Journal of Nursing Research
Survey
People
The dual experience of postpartum pain and depressive symptoms: A qualitative study
12-Aug-2026
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.