A compassionate, well-researched guide to dealing with obsessive-compulsive disorder as a parent, particularly a new parent.

The title grabbed me since this seems to be a common postpartum experience. The book felt thorough enough for a first time mom but I found myself skimming as I’ve read up on this quite a bit. The author tries to give information, examples, personal experiences, and practical tips that could be helpful for many. However, I didn’t learn anything new.

This self-help guide for moms is about coping with intrusive thoughts and OCD, but I felt that the author was less interested in talking about OCD than she was in outlining her plan for overall "maternal wellness" and creating more equitable divisions of household labor. She skimps on the unique, hard-to-find OCD content to cover concepts that are done to death elsewhere, and even though I agree that feeling less overwhelmed with household work and other commitments will help your mental health, people don't buy books about OCD for this kind of life management advice.

Also, I wish that this book wasn't just for mothers. The author briefly acknowledges that some dads also deal with intrusive thoughts, but she doesn't include anything for them, and so much of the book has to do with the social and emotional aspects of motherhood and mom pressures that I wouldn't recommend this book to a suffering father. It bothered me that the author spent so much time talking about unrelated life management topics without throwing a line to dads by including a single case study or chapter about fathers with intrusive thoughts.

Despite my frustrations with this book, the author shares many helpful insights about OCD and intrusive thoughts, and she gives evidence-based advice for how to fight OCD through CBT principles and exposure therapy. She also includes example stories from her own parenting journey and from composite examples of other moms. I like that she gave examples from women in different situations, including a woman who is dealing with intrusive thoughts and anxiety about family planning, a woman who is fearful about adding a second child to her family, and a single mom. The author also writes about the impact of former pregnancy loss on maternal mental health.

However, although she provides a range of different examples, the author almost exclusively writes about palatable and less disturbing expressions of OCD. Although she acknowledges that OCD can involve intrusive thoughts about harm, she focuses on fears like, "What if I'm a bad mom?" and "What if I didn't sanitize this bottle enough?" Even when she gives examples about moms feeling fearful of injury and death, this almost always has to do with worrying about potential accidents. There's only a few references to fears that you'll physically harm or sexually assault your child, and the author only ever mentions these concepts in passing, one-sentence examples, without actually addressing the incredibly heavy topic of having irrational, fearful thoughts about something so terrible.

Still, don't get me wrong. Milder intrusive thoughts can be terrible as well. "What if I'm a bad mom?" could just be a random worry during a discouraged moment, but if someone is thinking this all the time, and it feels like a wildfire in her brain, and she is spending lots of time trying to put out that fire by reassuring herself through visible or mental compulsions, then that's OCD. Still, even though this can be a genuinely awful intrusive thought for some mothers, the thought in and of itself is quite mild. It bothered me that the author spent so much time writing about it, while ignoring inherently traumatizing and stigmatized expressions of OCD.

Her reassurances would also carry a lot more weight if she engaged with worse OCD themes. She tells readers that their fears and irrational thoughts don't make them bad mothers, and that they're only worrying about these things because they love their child and want their child to be healthy and protected. However, because she doesn't detail what it's like to deal with intrusive thoughts about harming your child, and just writes about the stuff that's easier and more palatable to think about, someone dealing with worse thoughts could find that this book just makes them feel worse.

The author almost entirely sidesteps worse OCD problems, and she primarily gives examples of normal worries that might or might not get magnified to an OCD level. It really bothered me that she didn't engage with OCD-specific fears. This book can be very helpful for some moms dealing with postpartum OCD, but that's only if their intrusive thoughts are merely upsetting, and aren't inherently taboo.

I would not recommend this to someone whose intrusive thoughts revolve around fears of harming their child. If someone is terrified that they'll commit a heinous crime, even though they don't want to do that thing, find the thoughts abhorrent, and would never act on them, the author's reassurances will fall INCREDIBLY flat, because she thinks you're just worried about accidents or not living up to society's standards for moms. I would recommend "The Imp of the Mind: Exploring the Silent Epidemic of Obsessive Bad Thoughts" by Lee Baer to this audience instead.

My last baby was born 3 years ago but I still found this book helpful. I have spent the last 9 years having babies and adjusting to hormones (4 babies in 6 years!) and my mental health has taken a real hit.
I have the OCD thoughts that can spin out of control about all the bad things that can happen to my kids and just learning that this is common and im not alone has actually really helped.
Although I dont think this book is a substitute for those that truly need medicine and therapy, it sure is a start to a road to a happier life.

Thank you to NetGalley and the Publisher for providing this read. All opinions are my own.
Helpful title for those trying to start a family and navigate the complexities of making decisions, dealing with anxiety, etc.

I can see this tome helping lots of mothers, both first time and seasoned moms! Anxiety and intrusive thoughts are part of the name of the game, and this book both normalizes and helps parents deal with anxiety. Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an arc of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is a must-have resource to help one improve mental health, resiliency, and live a more full and happy life. It is full of great strategies, advice, and easy to implement ideas. This is one I'll return to again and again. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of the book.

As a first time mom who gave birth prematurely and is currently suffering postpartum depression, this book holds a special place in my heart. Knowing that there are a lot of moms feeling guilty and isolated with their thoughts it is actually nice to know that there are other REAL people with the same kind of experience. This book with its realistic approach actually offers assurance to its readers that everything is totally normal and that everything is going to be okay.

I couldn't get past the parts about either ignoring or reframing your feelings of anxiety...

That is extremely unhelpful and diminishing to the person's experience. Anxiety, post partum or otherwise is both real and valid. Ableism at its best.

Thanks NetGalley for the e-arc! As a mother who had intrusive thoughts herself this has plenty of ideas and steps to take to help. Any mother, expecting or with baby already earth side, should check this out.

I received this book as a "Read Now" option on NetGalley. I am a first time mom who suffered from anxiety and OCD before pregnancy, and saw a shift in how they presented postpartum. I came across this title and immediately saved it because it seemed like it would be incredibly helpful at this point in my life. Overall I thought it was a pretty good and quick read. I'll break up my deeper thought based on the parts of the book. Part 1: I thought this part was a bit redundant and probably could have been edited down. It felt like a lot of repeating information and came across as condescending to the reader. In reality I imagine this part was stretched a bit to reflect the length of the other parts, but I feel that was unnecessary. Part 2: This section was my favorite of the book, and is one I'd want to go back to with a physical copy. The practicals were so helpful. The different guided exposure exercises and ideas for journaling or reflection were a huge takeaway for me in particular. I don't want to give away too much, but Part 2 alone will be why I recommend this book to new parents. Part 3: A lot of the information in this part was similar to any other parenting book, but it added the unique lens of anxiety and OCD. It didn't feel like anything groundbreaking, but it was very practical and also validating. Overall: I think the language in this book was super gendered which is surprising for 2024. I'd be curious to know how intrusive thoughts manifest in all parents, not just moms. I also personally like stepping away from defaulting to "mom and dad" and instead leaning into "parents or caregivers." Like I said, overall I thought this book was great. I will likely pick up a physical copy to refer back to and will highly recommend it to other new parents.