20. Dr. Angel Montfort on Perinatal Mental Health + Anxiety

It’s Amy here and today I am honored to have my friend, Dr. Angel Monfort on as a guest. She is a licensed clinical psychologist and certified in perinatal mental health. Dr. Angel helps women navigate the challenging years of motherhood through The Center of Maternal Mental Health and she is a mom of four.Dr. Angel shares the things she had anxiety about when she first became a mama and how being a high achieving perfectionist caused motherhood to be even harder for her. She shares that she wishes she could go back and tell herself that yes, this is hard. And that’s okay.The term high functioning anxiety has become increasingly popular and Dr. Angel explains what exactly this term means. She goes into the physiological components that go along with anxiety like panic attacks, extreme fear, heart palpitations, or your breathing might become irregular. Dr. Angel goes into details about how you can set yourself up to help prevent these symptoms. She explains that if you are asking yourself the question of whether or not you should seek help, the answer is absolutely.Maybe you yourself don’t suffer from anxiety but you have a friend who does. Dr. Angel shares what we can do as a friend to help a fellow mama. Things like coordinating a meal train, picking up older children from school, or helping the mama get a solid 4-5 hour chunk of consecutive sleep can be so helpful.If you enjoyed listening to this episode, we would love it if you could share it to your Instagram stories and tag us, @expectingandempowered. As we like to say, knowledge is power, and we just really want to give more people the information that they may need on their childbirth journey!Follow Dr. Angel on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/drangelmontfort/Dr. Angel’s Website:https://www.cfmmh.com/Links & ResourcesExpecting and Empowered YouTube Channel:https://www.youtube.com/@expectingandempoweredExpecting and Empowered App:https://app.expectingandempowered.com/Expecting and Empowered Website:https://www.expectingandempowered.com/Expecting and Empowered Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/expectingandempowered/