Dear Abby: New mother asks how to support struggling friend
A new mother sought advice on how to balance her own positive experience with her friend's postpartum difficulties.
AI-assisted coverage comparison, editor-supervised · How this was made
Dear Abby: New mother asks how to support struggling friend
Photograph: Inquirer (embedded from source)
What this story says
- A new mother is concerned about her best friend, who has become distant, anxious, and depressed since giving birth.
- The friend is struggling with motherhood and breastfeeding, while the asker is adjusting well and finding it natural.
- Dear Abby advised the new mother to encourage her friend to consult an obstetrician about potential hormonal imbalances.
- The advice column also addressed a separate query about a retired husband who drives friends to the airport, causing frustration.
Who covered it
Percentages are shares of the 7 outlets carrying a published leaning rating. Coverage measured .
Trust
42/100
Craft
69/100
Hype
15/100
7 sources · methodology
Thin on the right so far
None of the 7 outlets with a published leaning rating that ran this story are rated right.
This story is still being watched, so it is a count and not yet a finding. Coverage keeps arriving for hours after an event, and a side that has published nothing this morning may publish by tonight. If it is still true when we stop checking, we will say so plainly.
A new mother sought advice from the Dear Abby column regarding her best friend, who is experiencing significant emotional distress two months after childbirth. The asker stated that she and her friend became pregnant around the same time and initially felt blessed to share the experience. However, the friend has become distant, anxious, and depressed since her daughter's birth, presenting a stark contrast to the asker's own positive adjustment to motherhood.
The new mother expressed concern that her friend perceives her own happiness and positive experiences with breastfeeding as rubbing it in her face. She asked how to support her friend while still being honest about her own joyful experience. Dear Abby suggested that the friend's struggles might stem from a physiological cause, such as a hormonal imbalance after childbirth, and urged the asker to encourage her friend to speak with an obstetrician. Abby also advised the asker to find other people with whom to share her positive experiences for a while, to be more sensitive to her friend's current state.
Coverage Disagreements
The reports do not present any factual disagreements. All six outlets that ran the story covered the first query to Dear Abby about the new mothers.
What the coverage left out
None of the right-rated reports ran this story. The left and centre-rated reports, which were primarily digests, did not include the second letter to Dear Abby about the husband driving friends to the airport, which was present in the full report from the Inquirer.
Still developing. We have re-checked which outlets are covering this 6 times, most recently on 23 Aug 2026, 15:15, and will add the sides that appear.
How each side covered it
Our own reading of the reporting listed below, written from the outlets’ articles rather than quoted from them. The reasoning is set out on our methodology page.
Left
3 rated outlets
- The left-rated reports focused on the central dilemma of the first letter: a new mother's struggle to support a friend experiencing postpartum anxiety and depression while navigating her own positive adjustment to motherhood. The Inquirer, as the only full report, also included a second, separate letter to Dear Abby concerning a retired husband who repeatedly drives friends to the airport, causing frustration for his wife. The Chicago Sun Times and lehighvalleylive digests focused solely on the first letter's theme of differing postpartum experiences.
Centre
4 rated outlets
- The centre-rated reports highlighted the contrast between the two new mothers' experiences. Michigan Live, Mass Live, and New Hampshire Union Leader digests all focused on the asker's question about whether she must temper her own joy because her friend is struggling. These digests concentrated on the emotional and relational aspects of the first letter, framing it as a question of balancing personal happiness with a friend's difficulties.
Right
0 rated outlets
No outlet rated right has run this story so far. We are still checking, and will say plainly if that does not change.
Questions about this coverage
- How did the left and right cover Dear Abby: New mother asks how to support struggling friend?
- Of the 7 outlets on this story carrying a published leaning rating, 43% are rated left, 57% are rated centre, 0% are rated right. Those percentages are shares of the rated outlets, not of every outlet that ran it. The sections above set out what each side emphasised, in its own terms.
- Is Dear Abby: New mother asks how to support struggling friend left or right?
- Too few of the outlets on this story carry a published leaning rating to say. 7 of them do, and this site does not characterise a field under 12: at that size one newsroom filing moves the share by ten points. The percentages above are the count as it stands.
- Is the coverage of Dear Abby: New mother asks how to support struggling friend biased?
- Dear Abby: New mother asks how to support struggling friend is one event reported by 7 outlets, and this page does not rate the story as biased or unbiased. What it publishes is the spread: which outlets ran it, where named rating organisations place each of them on the spectrum, and what each side chose to lead with. A leaning rating describes an outlet's record over time, not this article, and the two should not be run together.
- Which side is not reporting Dear Abby: New mother asks how to support struggling friend?
- When we first saw this story, outlets rated right had barely covered it. Coverage accretes for hours after an event, so that is where to look rather than a verdict — the split above is the current count, and it is the one to read.
- Which outlets covered Dear Abby: New mother asks how to support struggling friend?
- 7 that we know of, every one of them listed further up this page with a link to its own report and to what we hold on the publisher. Nothing here is a summary of somebody else's summary: the outlets are named so the original reporting can be read.
- What advice did Dear Abby give the new mother?
- Dear Abby advised the new mother to encourage her friend to consult an obstetrician about potential hormonal imbalances that can cause anxiety and depression after childbirth. Abby also suggested the new mother be more sensitive to her friend's struggles by sharing her own positive experiences with other people for a while.
- Why is the new mother concerned about her friend?
- The new mother is concerned because her best friend has become distant, anxious, and depressed since giving birth to her daughter two months ago. This is in contrast to the asker, who is adjusting well to motherhood and finding it comes naturally to her.
- Did all the outlets cover the same letters from Dear Abby?
- No, the Inquirer published a full report that included two letters to Dear Abby. The other five outlets published digests that focused only on the first letter concerning the two new mothers. Therefore, the second letter about the husband driving friends to the airport was not covered by the centre-rated outlets or the other left-rated digests.
Read it at the source
7 outlets, grouped by the leaning a published rating gives them. Every headline links to the original; an underlined outlet name opens our profile of that publisher.
Left
3- Dear Abby: Friends' Mental States Differ Wildly After Childbirth (opens Chicago Sun Times in a new tab)
Chicago Sun Times — is Chicago Sun Times biased? Our profile of this outletOpinion
- Dear Abby: Must I mute my excitement as a new mom to protect my struggling friend? (opens lehighvalleylive in a new tab)
lehighvalleylive — is lehighvalleylive biased? Our profile of this outletOpinion
- Dear Abby | Friends’ mental states differ wildly after childbirth (opens Inquirer in a new tab)
Inquirer — is Inquirer biased? Our profile of this outletOpinion
Centre
4- Dear Abby: Must I mute my excitement as a new mom to protect my struggling friend? (opens Penn Live in a new tab)
Penn Live — is Penn Live biased? Our profile of this outletOpinion
- Dear Abby: These besties had babies at about the same time, but their experiences are very different (opens Mass Live in a new tab)
- Dear Abby: Must I tamp down my joy at being a new mom because my friend is struggling? (opens Michigan Live in a new tab)
Michigan Live — is Michigan Live biased? Our profile of this outletOpinion
- Abby: Friends' mental states differ wildly after childbirth (opens New Hampshire Union Leader in a new tab)
New Hampshire Union Leader — is New Hampshire Union Leader biased? Our profile of this outlet
Right
0No outlet in this group ran the story.
Not rated
0No outlet in this group ran the story.
How did this read?
About the coverage, not about the story. We do not ask whether you agree with what happened — we have no honest use for that answer.
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