How can the quest for perfection mess up a gal's headspace? Look no further than Black Swan, the ballet thriller that just earned Natalie Portman a Golden Globe for best actress.

Portman plays Nina, a gaunt, obsessive dancer cast as the Queen of Swans in a production of Swan Lake. In exchange for the lead role? Her sanity.

"I felt it," Nina tells her bullying artistic director as the film comes to its harrowing climax. "Perfect. I was perfect."

While most new moms aren't prancing around in unitards and tutus (sweats are so much more forgiving), many of us -- dare I say most of us? -- are, like Nina, grappling with the same desire to be faultless. To be the Queen of Mothers. To exclusively breastfeed at all hours with a euphoric grin on our faces. To vigilantly check toys and soaps for potentially hazardous ingredients. To keep that child happy and safe no matter the cost to us. To our sanity.

Our role is less public than Nina's but it, too, carries with it incredible pressure and impossible expectations. Add to that a tempest of hormones, exhaustion, worry, overwhelm and grief about one's pre-baby life (and body), and it's no wonder new moms' mental health is in jeopardy.

Postpartum depression affects up to 15 per cent of new mothers and can happen any time up to a year after childbirth. Symptoms include feelings of sadness, guilt and hopelessness, fatigue, reduced libido, changes in eating and sleeping patterns, anxiety, irrational fears and irritability.

But moms don't like to talk about it. I've heard countless war stories about childbirth complications -- the placental malfunctions, the tearing, the vacuum extractions -- but no one has ever told me face-to-face about her struggles with PPD. That she's inexplicably sad. Anxious. Guilt-ridden. Freaked out. PPD is the unspoken complication.

The tendency is for moms to gush about how wonderful motherhood is. How rewarding and deliciously amusing and blissful it is. How things couldn't be peachier with their new little best friend. Hmm. A recent survey by the U.K.-based website Netmums found that many mothers lied about parenting because they felt pressured to be perfect.

"Mums need to be more honest with each other," Netmums' cofounder Siobhan Freegard told the BBC.

Two-thirds of the 5,000 people surveyed said they had been dishonest in order to keep up the notion of coping, in part because they compared themselves to other mothers. (And I thought peer pressure ended after high school.)

Tascheleia Marangoni, a mother of three who runs a dance school in this city, wants new mothers to feel they can be truthful about how motherhood is affecting them and to know where they can get help locally for postpartum mood disorders, which can include depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Marangoni is the founder of Postpartum Depression Awareness Month in Edmonton, a new consciousness-raising campaign in January that's been endorsed by Mayor Stephen Mandel.

The month she chose was deliberate. "If you're depressed or not feeling yourself, January is about the worst month," Marangoni says. "You're coming down from that Christmas high. And it's not just cold, the snow, it's the darkness."

Marangoni struggled with a postpartum mood disorder with both her first and third child and found it hard to recognize the condition, get help and be forthright.

Postpartum depression "isn't taboo but it's hush-hush," she says. "It's embarrassing. You have this beautiful new baby and you feel like you should be full of joy, not stress."

Marangoni has also created a comprehensive website -- www.ppda.ca-- that families dealing with postpartum depression can use as a resource to find help in Edmonton. It's something she wished had been around during her struggles with PPD.

These days, new moms are given informative handouts about the condition as soon as they've given birth. Mine are in a drawer in Oscar's room. I read through them now and then, check off any symptoms that apply, always questioning whether the tiredness and worry are simply tiredness and worry, or indications of something graver. So far, so good.

Marangoni remembers getting the handouts but says it's not enough.

"You can have all the brochures in the world, but if you don't recognize what's happening, it's a problem."

Even once Marangoni recognized her symptoms, she struggled to find help. Her call to the hospital got transferred around as people tried to figure out whom to connect her to. She was put on hold, given wrong numbers.

"I am a resourceful person," she says. "What about people who aren't? How many numbers are they going to call before they give up?"

A public health nurse asked about my mindset when I took my son for his first immunizations, and suggested options if I felt I needed help, including an in-house psychologist specialized in PPD.

Marangoni wasn't so lucky and wants to make sure that doesn't happen to other women. The condition wreaked havoc on her mental health and her marriage. So severe were the impacts, she waited 10 years before having a second child.

Edmonton's Postpartum Depression Awareness Month -- one of the first of its kind in Canada -- is designed to get moms and their families talking. To snub out the silence and the shame. To explain to women they don't have to be perfect the minute they bring their bundle of joy home from the hospital. The campaign culminates with an info session and social on Jan. 29 from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. at Willowby Community League Hall, 6315 184th St.

Marangoni says it's important to offer families who are dealing with PPD a place they can share and learn. "It's not that it's not discussed, but it's not discussed enough."

As for Natalie Portman, well, she's pregnant with her first child. I suspect she'll discover that being a new mom can be as brutal as being a ballerina.

ewithey@edmontonjournal.com

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