Please join us to explore this important topic with Paige Bellenbaum, LCSW, PMH-C.

Welcoming a baby is often experienced as both a joyful milestone and one of the most stressful transitions a couple will face together. As partners become parents, their relationship undergoes profound shifts in routines, responsibilities, identity, and emotional connection. Research consistently shows that most couples experience a significant decline in relationship satisfaction during the first three years postpartum, driven by sleep deprivation, changes in the division of labor, caregiving conflict, role strain, identity shifts, and diminished intimacy. Without intentional preparation and support, the transition to parenthood can fundamentally reshape a couple’s daily life, individual sense of self, and shared partnership. Despite how common these challenges are, many new parents feel surprised or distressed by the changes in their relationship and may attribute difficulties to personal or relational failure rather than recognizing this as a normative developmental stage.

This training will provide clinicians with a framework for understanding the social-emotional shifts, challenges, and expectations that accompany new parenthood. Participants will learn to identify common perinatal relationship stressors and patterns of interaction that can escalate conflict or disconnection. The training will introduce evidence-based strategies and practical clinical skills to help couples negotiate roles and responsibilities, navigate conflict more effectively, enhance communication, and sustain emotional and physical intimacy during the perinatal period.

Participants of this webinar will be able to:

• Examine the sociocultural expectations that couples face as they enter new parenthood
• Gain a foundational understanding of key stressors and social-emotional shifts that impact couples during the perinatal period
• Learn evidence-based tools and strategies to help couples improve their relationship while adjusting to new parenthood

This webinar is for all of those working in the perinatal period as well as children birth to 5 and their families.

Date & Time:

10:00 AM - 11:30 AM ET

Friday, February 27th, 2026