The 4th Trimester with Enedina Robles, LCSW

05/07/2026

What would be your ideal Mother’s Day?

05/06/2026

It’s World Maternal Mental Health Day.

1 in 5 women and 1 in 10 men experience perinatal mental health and emotional issues, making these challenges far more common than most people realize.

04/12/2026

We’re doing it without the help we needed…
but one day, we’ll be the help we never had.

04/09/2026

What if the motherhood journey followed the turtle theory? How would things be different for you?

04/07/2026

Love this ❤️❤️❤️

❤❤❤

03/14/2026

Research shows that it takes six years to recover from the sleep changes that happen during the perinatal period, but our sleep is never the same.

Research shows that childbirth triggers significant neurological adaptations in the mother’s brain, including structural changes to the amygdala that enhance sensitivity to her baby - an adaptation for the baby’s protection.

To elaborate, in the weeks following birth, activity and volume in the amygdala often increase. This region acts as the brain’s “emotional smoke detector”, becoming hyper-responsive to infant signals like crying, movement, or breathing patterns.

This enhanced amygdala makes mothers hypersensitive to their baby’s needs and can trigger a protective “fight or flight” response within MILLISECONDS of hearing a distress cue.

Researchers note that a mother’s sleep becomes biologically lighter after childbirth, as a result. Even during sleep, the brain continues scanning for infant cues, a state known as maternal hypervigilance.

Shifts in hormones like oxytocin and cortisol further sensitize the nervous system, keeping it on high alert specifically for the baby’s sounds.

PMID: 20939669

03/06/2026

Love the idea of sharing the status of your nervous system with the people you love.

Healthy relationships sometimes look less like dramatic conversations…

…and more like:

“Hey love — my nervous system needs quiet tonight.”

Translation:
Nothing is wrong.
Nobody is in trouble.
No relationship emergency.

Just a slightly fried human nervous system that needs an hour and then a cuddle.

Space + return.

Highly underrated relationship medicine.

03/03/2026

We see you mama!

02/28/2026

Mom’s mental health needs to be considered (and the fact that it is her body) when determining how a baby will be fed.

When got pregnant, it had been after many years of feeling disconnected from her body, for a number of reasons. After diagnosing and treating stage 4 endometriosis, she had been looking forward to a stretch of her life where her body felt like her own again—until pregnancy derailed that.

Once she had Scottie, her daughter with , Hewitt had to decide how she would feed her baby. She weighed her mental health, her recovery, and the kind of mother she wanted to be. In the end, she decided against breastfeeding. “My thought process was layered,” she writes for ELLE. “The most important thing to me was doing what is best for my baby. I will always do what is best for her.”

Now a few months into motherhood, Hewitt opens up about the contradictions, complex guilt, and learning to accept support in a culture that quietly equates suffering with devotion. Read her essay at the link in comments.

02/25/2026

Such an important conversation to have with your partner

01/15/2026

Finding Joy