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Category: Postnatal

Motherhood is f**king hard and you’re not meant to be doing this on your own
Those of you who follow my blog know by now that most of my posts are inspired by something that happens to me in my work as a doula.
Today is one of those days.
I’ve just had a conversation with a new mother of two, who has a baby and a preschooler, and who wonders why she’s so exhausted, and why everybody else seems to be coping fine.
She also feels guilty at the idea of asking for support.
I’m so seriously pissed off at our society right now!
I’ve written several times before about what new mothers really need, and I’d love to see a shift in our culture about how we support new mothers, with a mother centered, and mother supportive approach, rather than one that only gives gifts to the baby and encourages the new mother to “go back to normal” (as if there was such a thing!) as soon as possible after the birth of her baby-as if nothing of significance has happened.
This post is about the lack of community support, how we’re not meant doing this on our own, and how much harm is caused to new mothers by a culture which encourages women to put up a brave face, and keep their challenging moments secret.
This secret part means that women feel inadequate thinking they are alone in their struggle.
I remember being a new mother and struggling massively with finding my new identity (another topic that isn’t discussed), but also being really tired, bored and lonely (all my social network was at work from 9 to 5) at home with my new baby, and feeling really GUILTY about it.
I had this stupid romantic notion in my head that somehow, motherhood alone ought to make me feel fulfilled.
Ah bloody ah!
So I didn’t reach out and talked to anybody about it.
Luckily I read a lot of books, and I remember feeling so vindicated when reading, in the book “The continuum concept” that it’s not normal for our species to be alone with a baby.
We’re meant to be with other adults once we have babies, and babies are meant to be around many of people too.
We’re meant to have experienced mothers around us, other women in our close community, who can help guide us and make us feel more normal and confidence as we navigate the treacherous waters of new motherhood.
I love this article called ” In the Absence of the Village, Mothers Struggle Most”
I was also amazed to read an article about the fact that women who live in traditional tribal societies have the same issues with breastfeeding as Western women but the difference is that they have the support of experienced women around them.
We’re meant to have other people who can hold the baby for a while whilst we sleep, who can take care of chores and provide us with nutritious food whilst we rest and recover from growing and birthing a baby, and get to know our new baby too.
So in our nuclear family culture, for the lack of a village around most of us, we shouldn’t feel guilty about asking for support, we should demand and expect support, because that’s what’s normal for our species.
What’ not normal in the unusual situation Western culture puts us in.
We also live in a strange, “fake” culture, one that is all about glossy Instagram pictures. Motherhood isn’t glossy. Motherhood is raw and messy. There are many moments in the day of a mother, that can be wonderful (the smiles and gurgles of a baby), and also many moments full of tedious drudgery, and many moments which are downright terrible. I love this article about it.
Coming back to my early days of being a mother, my feelings of inadequacy were exacerbated by the fact that I didn’t talk to anybody about it. One of my biggest regrets to this day is not to have hired my birth doula, Maddie Mc Mahon, as a postnatal doula to help me through make sense of things through these first few weeks and months. Knowing the magic of doula support, I know it would have made a world of difference, to have someone witnessing my mothering and reflecting it back to me in a positive light ,and reframing it like I am trying to do with this blog.
But hey I believed that I couldn’t justify spending money on myself, what with my reduced maternity leave pay and all that. It felt selfish and indulgent to spend money on myself. Yet I bought so much useless crap for my baby. Somehow, I don’t think I even realised at the time that I was a victim of the low value our culture places on mothers and motherhood.
Eventually I started going to baby classes, and met other mothers who became friends, and the informal discussions we had whilst feeding and playing with our babies were peppered with priceless nuggets of information-and made me realise that I was normal and not alone.
As a doula I have had more occasions that I can remember when I’ve witness new mums going through the same feelings of inadequacy.
“I’m not doing anything” they say. I usually reflect back to them that they are solely managing to keep a very helpless and very demanding tiny human alive-and that’s no mean feat!
The problem is that our culture place such a low value on motherhood, and considers it to the a “non activity”, so people assume that mothers just get to relax all day. But nothing could be further from the truth.
I remember when I went back to work when my son was a baby. I went back part time-working 4 days a week. On my day off , I hung out with my new mum friends, some of which had decided not to go back to work. One of them said “I don’t know how you do it”- referring to the fact that she thought that balancing work and being a mother was really difficult. I replied “no, I don’t know how YOU do it”, then proceeded to explain to her that the hard days weren’t the ones at work, but the ones at home. I told her that on my work days I got uninterrupted coffee and lunch breaks-complete with adult conversation, and that I even got to go to the toilet on my own (anybody with a small child knows that as soon as you sit on the loo they need your attention for something).
There is no breaks in the day of a new mum, no pauses, no quiet, uninterrupted time, no appraisals, no pats on the back, and no bonuses.
The days can be 14-16 hour long or more.
You cannot see the results of your mothering at the end of each day, the results of all the effort, all the patience, all the time and all the love you have poured into your child.
I love this dad’s response to a friend asking what his stay at home wife does all day.
The “I’m a crap mum” worry is another common one. We focus on where we’re failing, on the moment when we’re exhausted and loose our shit with our kids, not on all the love with pour into them all day. I did that a lot in the early days, I saw other mums do stuff I wasn’t doing with my kid, and I felt like I was lacking. I never did focus on the stuff I was doing well.
I have said many times before that there should be some kind of “bad mothers club” (a bit like AA but for mums), where mothers could safely talk about the less pleasant sides of motherhood without being judged.
I was inspired today by reading this story of a mum who hunted around her toddler’s bedroom for the source of the bad smell, only to find her toddler had done a poo behind the curtain, on the windowsill at that. (warning-graphic picture of a poo if you open the link).
This mum was judged and shamed on social media for posting this.
And yet this can be the reality of motherhood for many of us.
I once had my baby in a sling and he had an explosive poo which leaked all the way down his legs and onto the sling. And yes I was out in a park when this happened.
I for one, wish more mothers had the guts to post stories and pictures like the mum who wrote the toddler poo story.
We need a “real motherhood” Instagram account!
Let’s leave the glossy culture behind, the one that keeps on portraying motherhood as filled only with joy, let’s stop only sharing the perfect pictures, and let’s stop pretending that everything in our life is perfect.
Because if more mothers shared the less glamorous stories as well as the joyful moments, more of us would realise that we’re not alone and that motherhood comes with enormous highs, but also with terrible lows. And all within the same day, sometimes within minutes even.
More of us would feel connected, normal, and would have a good laugh in the process too!
Only in sharing the joys and the lows can we truly connect with each other.
If you resonate with this, please comment, and also please share stories of raw moments of motherhood.

November 13, 2017
How closing the bones can help after baby loss
When I started writing this post during baby loss awareness week, I thought I was going to write a post specifically about miscarriage. But when I started writing it, I felt that it needed to be about baby loss in general. Because you cannot measure grief by what it looks on paper.
Your grief can be as real if your baby died when you just found out you were pregnant, or if your baby dies when he was several months old. Grief cannot be defined by numbers, and we cannot measure how sad, how hurt we are, or by comparing ourselves to others. By judging that some losses are more “worthy” of grief than others. It doesn’t work like that.
Yet, god knows I’ve been guilty of doing this myself when it comes to my own grief. So I want to share my stories, and those of others, and I hope it helps. I have two different histories of baby loss. The first was when I was eight and my little brother, Julien, was stillborn.
This was in the late 70s, and in those days people thought that brushing things under the carpet was the right thing to do, that to pretend it just hadn’t happened meant that, somehow, it would disappear from your brain. None of us where allowed to grieve or process our feelings properly. There was no funeral, and my brother’s little body was disposed of in clinical waste. There was no memory box, no pictures, no footprints. I never got to see my brother (neither did my mum). My mum hid in the toilets to cry. We didn’t share our sadness. I was left with all those unprocessed feelings, so unprocessed in fact that my mind’s choose to forget them to protect me. I have this big blank in my memory which I cannot retrieve. I can’t remember my mum being pregnant, or anything after the birth. Which is odd because, of course, I have plenty of memories of times before that. There is a part of my childhood I simply cannot reclaim because we weren’t allowed to grieve at the time.
When I studied how children grieve as part of my antenatal education diploma, this led me to revisiting this in depth and I had some lovely healing conversations with my mother about it. In fact in 2017 I closed the circle by giving my mum a closing the bones session-she was very scared about what it would bring, in case it brought all the bad feelings flooding back I think, but it was gentle and beautiful and, honouring, nurturing and healing for both of us. A couple of years later, I would give her the massage again to help with back pain, only for my mother to tell me the day was the anniversary of the birth of my baby brother,
My second loss, was when I miscarried my own baby (I went on to have 3 further miscarriages and 2 live children but I am only relating the story of my first loss in this blog).
I started to try and conceive when I was about 33. After over a year of trying and no pregnancy, we were fast tracked for fertility tests, due to my age and irregular cycles. Everything was normal but my cycles were very long and they wanted to give me drugs to induce ovulation. I wasn’t keen, so I investigated other options instead, and after 3 months of acupuncture, I fell pregnant for the first time. I can still feel the raw, amazing joy I felt when the test turned pregnant. I can still picture myself, alone in the bathroom. I looked at myself in the mirror, and I burst into tears of joy. I kept my little secret all day and then surprised my husband with the wrapped positive test in the evening. For 3 months I walked around in a constant state of bliss. Yes I was tired and nauseous at times, but mostly, I was so high on pregnancy hormones, and I felt that nothing could touch me.
At 12 weeks we went for our first scan. We were very excited. Then the sonographer told us there was no heartbeat. She tried scanning me again. I was in denial, still hopeful that somehow, there had been a mistake, and that my baby would still be alive. But my baby had died. What ensued was disbelief, numbness and shock, followed by the deepest grief I had ever experienced. I cried like I had never cried before in my life. Big heavy howling sobs. My arms literally ached for my baby.
It wasn’t helped by the lack of understanding of my own feelings, by the lack of acknowledgement our culture provides to women who miscarry, by the lack of support, or by the inappropriate, well meaning comments given by friends and relatives who didn’t know how to support a mother’s grief.
- “It wasn’t a real baby” (to me it was)
- “There was probably something wrong with it” (maybe, but this was implying I was wrong to grieve)
- “You can have another one” (I wanted this one)
- “At least you can get pregnant” (more grief dismissal)
All these comments contributed to feeling that my grief wasn’t valid.
Thankfully someone put me in touch with the miscarriage association. I rang lovely local volunteer lady Janet Sackman. She was the first person to put soothing, acknowledging words on my grief. I ended up attending miscarriage association meetings for a while. I helped me a lot with processing my feelings. But nothing was done to help heal my body, my spirit, my soul, in a holistic way.
I carried this grief and this fear with me-nobody helped me with that. I never experienced that feeling of bliss in any of my subsequent pregnancies, because I was so scared that I was going to lose my baby again, that I didn’t dare let myself be happy again.
In 2013 I was trained into doing a postnatal massage called Closing the bones. I have been offering and teaching it since 2014 (read about that here). Having offered the massage to hundred of women, we started noticing some common threads in what this ritual does, and one of these thread is how helpful it is for loss. Amongst the women who received this massage, many, including the ones who had live births as well as loss, told me that the ritual felt especially significant for loss. To this day, women keep telling me this.
This is what some of those women said:
” I came along to the Closing the Bones Training about a year after my baby had died. Towards the end of the ceremony, as I was being rocked deep shudders started going through my body and as the rebozo was pulled tight around my pelvis I felt a huge emotion that even now I am not sure what to call it. It felt as though the protective bubble I had formed around myself moved away and with that my baby – as if I was releasing him. Sobs racked my body all the grief, the anger, the exhaustion all the disbelief of what had happened came pouring out. I hadn’t realised how much I was holding on to. I felt the women form a circle around me and felt what it was like to have a safe space held for me, allowing me to just be there in my wild tumult of emotion. I heard someone singing the most beautiful song and someone stroking my hair, hands touching me sending love and support“. Rosie (you can read more about Rosie story and the beautiful poem she wrote here ).
“I have had 3 different losses. All the years up to having children when I felt sad I realised I had empty arm syndrome. It was a deep sadness that as I was so young was not felt I had the luxury of acknowledging. (Wwhen I felt pregnant) I never fully bonded – just in case. I always felt doomed. After two more children in quick succession I learnt closing the bones and was lucky enough to be the subject for the full closing ceremony at the end. I could see golden light all around and I felt deeply relaxed and to have so many women touch me was a unique honour. When I got home I felt a far deeper connection to my children than I had before. A lingering barrier I was unaware of had been lifted. Since then I have felt a far deeper acknowledgement of my loss. And far less pretending all was ok. It feels far more authentic. ” Allison
“Having the closing the bones massage helped me to accept my babies loss and start to move forward and also forgive my body and let go of all the negative feelings.” Claire
This is also what some of the women who had losses, have either experienced or heard about closing the bones, but didn’t experience closing the bones at the time/or since their loss told us:
“I think it could have helped me as it took a long time to fall pregnant again and I felt like I had to be pregnant again in order to process losing our second daughter. Maybe a closing the bones ceremony would have helped with saying goodbye to that pregnancy and feeling less stressed falling pregnant again. If that makes sense?” Hannah
“Instinctively I feel this is a worthwhile ritual/ ceremony to honour the mother and acknowledge her pregnancy and loss”. Molly
“I had a miscarriage at 9 weeks. I think closing the bones would have helped me in so many ways, but mostly emotionally, being able to share it with another woman who understands or at least who can empathise and perhaps sympathise. Who could normalise it (I knew it was common, but it would still have been nice to be told again, several times!). A healing time with another woman. That’s what I would have liked”. Saveria
” I didn’t know about closing the bones until recently and had not really considered it with regards to my loss, but your post made me reflect and actually had (has!) me in tears thinking about how, at the time, a “ceremony” would have helped me so very much. I would have found a closing the bones ceremony beautiful in that situation, a celebration of my child, me as her mother, and a way of celebrating her life, however short it was. I would have found it healing and it would have allowed me the focus I so desperately needed to just be alone with her, and my thoughts, and my pain! ” Jo
“I think it would have helped me after numerous miscarriages as a way of creating ‘closure’ but still keeping that love within me, honoured as a part of my body. I think of it whenever I wrap someone else, and today when I wrapped myself…” Katrina
If I could go back in time and have women close my bones after my miscarriages, I know what it would mean to me. It would mean that I would be held by a group of loving, supportive women, and that they would witness and acknowledge my grief as valid, without judgment. THat I could let all my emotions out, within a safe space, whilst being held. This would have felt very significant for me at the time, the physical aspect of it, and I expect would have helped me heal faster, and better, than I did at the time. It would have been complimentary to the more “mental” side of the miscarriage association meetings. This is also why I feel so strongly passionate about supporting women through loss.
In her recent book, Braving the Wilderness, Brene Brown states :
” The collective pain (and sometimes joy) we experience when gathering in any way to celebrate the end of a life is perhaps one of the most powerful experiences of inextricable connection. Death, loss, and grief are the great equalizers.”
This feels like what this ritual is all about when honouring the loss of a baby.
October 18, 2017
What new mothers really need
I’ve just finished looking after a new mum as a postnatal doula.
As I supported the new mother, once again I was reminded of the fact that our culture’s focus, when it comes to postnatal recovery, is completely wrong.
Our culture got it wrong because it focuses entirely on the new baby, when it should be focusing on the new mother.
I have touched on this before when talking about postnatal recovery, but I need to dedicate a whole post about this topic.
What it boils down to is in fact very simple.
A new baby’s needs, too, are very simple: food, warmth and shelter.
But those needs are also incredibly intense and time consuming, because babies need a lot of cuddles, and feeding little and often.
Traditional wisdom around the world understands this well, and new mothers are nurtured, and are not expected to cook, do chores and or look after other children etc for at least a month after the birth of a baby.
The support often comes in the form of extended family and local community, or an older woman or young girl is hired to help.

This happens because these cultures understand how important it is for a mother to recover physically and emotionally after growing and birthing a baby- and also how important it is for her to have time to get to know her new baby.
The nurturing takes place in the form of special nourishing dishes, as well as physical practises such as massage and/or binding of the abdomen or hips with a cloth (again many cultures are very specific about this, understanding how vulnerable the new mother is).
Since I started teaching the closing the bones postnatal massage 4 years ago, and started learning about the importance of this practise to help a new mother regain her strength and energy, I have taken it upon myself to ask every foreigner I meet what the traditional postpartum practises of his or her culture entails, and I have found that some form of nurturing practise of this kind (usually involving massage and/or binding of the abdomen hips )is ubiquitous around the world.
An Indian mum told me how her mother hired an old lady from the village who came and gave her a full body massage EVERY DAY for a month after the birth of her twins. A Kenyan mum told me how people would fight over whose turn it was to cook her food, and how she was so well looked after, she didn’t even wash herself.
What do we get, in the Western world today, on the other hand? As clinical psychologist Mia Scotland said at the doula UK conference, “Two weeks paternity leave and sleep when the baby sleeps”. We get presents that are entirely focused on the baby (bar the odd bouquet of flowers maybe-but you can’t eat those sadly), which again is very telling about what our culture considers important.
New mums aren’t nurtured, quite the opposite, in fact, their needs are ignored, nobody is admiring and respecting them for the amazing feat they just accomplished (growing and birthing a whole new person!), and they are even encouraged to “get back to normal” as soon as possible and admired if they do so.
This is SO wrong.
It also means that women feel guilty for seeking support for themselves, because of this bullshit, superwoman, “I can do it all by myself” crap that is peddled by our culture.
As I mentioned above, a new baby’s needs are simple, but they are also intense, and so what the baby really needs is for his mum to feel strong and nurtured enough to be able to meet those needs.
The needs of a new mother too, are incredible simple when it comes to it.
She needs good food, and she needs rest.
She needs not to worry about meeting anybody else’s needs for a while, but her own (and her baby’s).
But those simple needs, in our nuclear family culture, can be incredibly hard to meet.
So as I mentioned in my post “why you need to write a postnatal recovery plan” before, I would like to encourage expectant parents to plan a few weeks of support after the birth of their baby, thinking about how they are going to eat, rest and look after their house/family for the first 4-6 weeks after the birth.
You could call upon your family for support if this is a good option for you. When my children were born, my parents came from France for 2 weeks under the agreement that they would take care of all the shopping, all the cooking and cleaning etc and that my husband and I wouldn’t lift a finger. I get on very well with them so for me, this was heaven. I know, however, that many new parents do not have any family nearby, or that the family’s company may not necessarily be the kind that brings, calm peace and rest, and it will only work if that is the case.
You could plan ahead and batch cook and freeze food, or order some in.
If you can afford it, getting some support in the form of a postnatal doula, a cleaner (even if only for a short while), a mother’s help, or any other extra pair of adult hands which can take the weight of for a bit is completely priceless.
I just supported a new mum, and during the first 2 weeks postpartum, I gave her the closing the bones massage 4 times. It felt great to be able to nurture her this way, and it also felt very much needed. But I am also aware that, whilst I offered this to her as part of my postnatal doula package, not many mums who haven’t got a doula skilled in doing this would feel they can justify the expense, because of the misplaced cultural focus I mentioned above.
So if you are reading this and you’re an expectant mother, I urge you to write a postnatal recovery plan, and demand presents that support you and your growing family rather than your baby.
If you are reading this and you know a new mum who could do with some support, either give her that support directly if you can, in the form of some nourishing home cooked food delivered to her house with no expectation of entertainment in return, in the offer to play with her kids or hold her baby whilst she naps (tidy her house up, fold some laundry and empty her dishwasher whilst you’re at it), or if alternatively, buy her some help-a few hours of support from a postnatal doula, a delivery of frozen dishes that she can just pop in the oven (my client used this company ), or a closing the bones massage or 3!
Together, we can slowly help change our culture’s focus to one that honours and support new families.
If this resonates and you would like to work with me, head over here if you’re an expectant or new mother, and here if you are a birthworker
August 14, 2017
Rebozo video class-how to use a rebozo for pregnancy, birth and beyond
I did a live video class this week on how to use a rebozo shawl to support yourself and your clients through pregnancy, labour and birth, the postnatal period and beyond. Here is it 🙂
Play
July 20, 2017
Closing the bones, a journey in-between worlds-by Virginia Valli
Please visit our sister website to read Midwife Virginia Valli’s account of closing the bones
Closing the bones, a journey in-between worlds-by Virginia Valli
July 15, 2017
Today I was healed-a closing the bones story
We recently asked for stories from the people trained in offering closing the bones. We ran a competition to celebrate our 200th member. We wanted their experiences of both giving and receiving. We had many marvellous entries and will be sharing the winning entries over the coming weeks. Here is our runner-up winner, Rosie, with her beautifully touching story, which illustrate perfectly how healing closing the bones can be.
Please visit our sister website to read it
Today I was healed-a story of loss

May 1, 2017
Slow the f*ck down-how to look after yourself after the birth of your baby
Looking after new mums recently, I’ve been reminded how the message we get from our culture is seriously wrong.
This emphasis on “getting back to normal” is bullshit
There is no “normal” just after you’ve had a baby.
This isn’t a bloody race.
Yet everything is geared towards you pretending that nothing has happened, and the most important thing is that you go back as fast as you can towards the pretence that everything is all right. Get dressed in pretty clothes, get your makeup on, get your “shape” back (don’t even get me started on that one).
All the focus is on the baby-nobody asks the mum how she is doing and how she feels and whether she looks after herself properly.
All the presents are for the baby.
It’s all WRONG!
The baby doesn’t give a fuck about the bloody stuffed bear or the endless bouquets of flowers!
Yes those flowers sure are pretty but you can’t eat them and there are no good when your fridge is empty and you have to survive on chocolate biscuits (not that there is anything wrong with chocolate biscuits by the way-I believe all new mums deserve them, but you can’t feel well for very long without proper nutritious meals).
I see new mums not having naps because they have too many visitors interrupting their days. New mums getting themselves overtired because they feel they have to keep going.
You know what the secret to postpartum recovery is?
Slow the fuck down!
In a world that glorifies busy, it is a bit of revolutionary concept.
Did you know that all around the world (this used to include the Western world too-we just have lost the way), new mums don’t lift a finger during the first 40 days after birth? That relatives and friends rally round to cook gorgeous restorative foods? That women just lay in bed with their baby, and that they get massaged every day, complete with cloth wrapping of the abdomen and hips?
I’m not making it up-EVERY culture I have questioned about this has a form of that going. They haven’t lost their wisdom yet and they know that a woman who has singlehandedly grown and birthed a whole new human being needs to rest and recover from it.
I hear you saying “but my partner only gets 2 weeks’ paternity leave-how am I supposed to do that?”.
You need to plan for your recovery BEFORE the birth. Just like you have a birth plan, you need a postnatal recovery plan. I have already written about this here and here.
In the first 6 weeks postpartum, you need to prioritise good eating and resting over everything else.
If you can get help in the form of a friendly relative or two (emphasis on friendly here-you really don’t want a bossy and critical mother in law looking after you during that sensitive time), a gang of friends or a doula, great!
If you can’t, then depending what works for you/what you can afford, plan and batch freeze easily reheated food ahead of time. Have food delivered. Hire a cleaner/ a mother’s helper. Write down your list of daily/weekly chores prior to the birth, sit down with your partner and work out what you can afford to dump or outsource during those first few weeks. Anything and anybody who can help you prioritise eating well and resting over anything else.
Make sure you plan to have daily naps (that includes not having visitors around the time of said naps). Bring your baby to bed with you if she won’t sleep without you.
Tell all your friends and a family about your plans.
Tell them you intend to slow the fuck down and that you deserve it and expect them to support you.
Shout from the rooftop what you intend to do and what they can do to support you. Someone who delivers a casserole, tidies your kitchen, folds the laundry, and looks after your baby/other kids whilst you have a long shower or a nap-is a lot more valuable to you than one who comes in, expects to be given tea and entertained, and just wants to cuddle your baby instead of looking after you.
If you work with expectant and new mothers, please please please, spread this message around!
My hope is that as more and more new mums realise the value of this new way of applying ancient knowledge, it will help shift our culture and more mums will have heard about it and expect it to be normal.
If you are pregnant and feel drawn to work with me, head over here. If you are a birthworker and this resonates with you- look here.

November 2, 2016
There is no "one size fits all"
This week I was asked to do a video on how the way I think about the people I work with (pregnant women, birthing and new families, and birthworkers) has changed since I started doing what I do.
I was also asked why the transformation I facilitated in my clients means so much to me.
The first thing that popped into my head was a bell curve, experience, and confidence.
You see before I left science to become a doula I mostly only had theoretical knowledge about pregnancy, birth and parenthood.
Great theoretical knowledge, yes, but theoretical nonetheless.
Then I started working with pregnant women, their partners, and I also started to teach workshops to birthworkers.
Over the course of the first 2 couple of years I had a revelation : Nothing is black and white, and we are all so different.
For EVERYTHING there is a bell curve of normal. With some people at one end of the spectrum, some in the middle and some at the other end. All normal.
I keep learning this everyday and in every aspect of my personal and professional life. I am very humbled and grateful for the learning.
For example I get questions like “which sling do you recommend”. I don’t. They are like jeans or shoes. Try before you buy. What works for your friend may not work for you.
Or I get asked “how soon after a caesarean can I practise the closing the bones massage”. I don’t know. Ask the mum how she feels. Of course waiting until the scar has healed might be common sense, but some mums might be ready after 2 or 3 weeks and some not after even 6. Same for slings-post caesarean, some mums feel ready to carry their babies after days, some not even after weeks. Some mums like the feeling of support that a thick, padded carrier belt on their tummy, some hate it and want nothing near there at all.
I get the same questions about babies “when will my baby sleep through the night”? I don’t know, just like I can’t tell you at what age your baby will start to walk. Your baby is unique, like you. But I can help you work strategies to manage the sleepless nights.
Please, try not to compare yourself to other mums, or to compare your baby to other babies. Usually it doesn’t lead to very positive feelings as we focus on what we perceive is “better” in other families.
We are all different, and unique
Yet many parents looks up to other parents or to parenting “experts” for answers. Professionals do the same to other, more experienced professionals.
Often we are looking for a “magic trick” simple answer to a complex problem.
But what if it wasn’t like that, what if we recognised we can all learn from each other, and more importantly from ourselves?
Supporters- ask the mum how she feels, only she knows how she feels, what is comfy, what suits her. The answers are not to be provided by you but by the person you are supporting, Your role as a supporter is to help the parents find their own answers.
This is much more powerful as support than “teaching” people your way of doing things. This is where real confidence comes from. From believing that you can, that you have the answers, that you know what is right for you and your baby.
It doesn’t means that you can’t look at great role models and use other people’s ideas-but it means that you do so mindfully, and by making the decision yourself-not by asking someone else to tell you what to do.
People who pretend that their “one size fits all approach” or that they have a magic trick to guarantee that you’ll have a pain free birth or that your baby will sleep through the night if you do what they say, they are talking bullshit.
Life just doesn’t work like that.
And when parents ask so-called well intentioned “experts” what to do-be it with books or in real life, and they can’t manage to achieve what has been suggested-they often feel like a failure.
New parenthood is such a vulnerable period, and I am so pissed off that so many people are just cashing in to that vulnerability.
We are all unique.
So why do we always look for others, for “experts” to help us find the answers to our questions?
I think our education has a lot to answer for, where from a very early age we are led to believe that the answers always lie outside ourselves.
I know it certainly has taken me long time, and the journey out of academia and dogma to find my own ways to do things, and become confident in the process.
I also believe our “plaster society” (put a plaster on itand hey-problem gone!) encourages us far too much to seek simple “quick fixes” behaviourist answers to complex issues that require complex and long term solutions.
I love to support you as you take your own journey into learning to listen to your instincts, to your inner voice, finding your own answers.
There is no magic wand.
What do YOU want to do?
If you are pregnant and feel drawn to work with me, head over here. If you are a birthworker and this resonates with you- look here.
September 22, 2016
Three ways to educate yourself about birth
One of the side effects of the viral gentle caesarean video I shared last week is that I have been contacted by many women wanting to find out how to have such an caesarean, and I also received many unrelated questions from anxious pregnant women.
It has been quite an eye opener for me, because normally I work with women who have chosen to have me as their antenatal educator or as their doula. This means that I rarely interact with women who have no such support in place.
I know that statistically, less than 20 % of all expectant couples attend any form of antenatal education. This includes free NHS classes.
I find this very odd, because it is a most important and one probably one of the most important transition of a couple’s life. Yet for most very little time or money is spent on preparing for it.
I wonder if this is linked to the lack of value our culture places on parenting, but, hey that’s the subject of another (or many other blog posts) altogether.
Compare to what the average British couple spends on a wedding (£20K according to Money Saving Expert…). Yet which of the two events is going to have the biggest impact on the rest of your life? I know people think of medical staff as the experts in childbirth, so they think it’s ok to just turn up and “go with the flow”. But wedding planners are the experts in weddings, and you wouldn’t just tell them “just decide everything for me”, or you wouldn’t say about your wedding “I’m just going to wing it”. Would you?
If you want what is right for YOU, you need to find out what’s out there, what the options available are, what the stats for your local hospital are (you can find that here by the way), and much more.
Imagine for a minute if expectant couples in the UK spent only half of what they spend on their wedding on preparing for their births? Or even a quarter? The world of childbirth would change. People would be so educated, there would be more classes, more doulas, more support, everybody would find it normal, heck even maybe the NHS would get more funding if expectant couples demanded it!
But back to the topic of this post: If you want to educate yourself about the birth (and the postnatal period too-that’s just as important), there are three main options: The DIY version (teach yourself), the group version (antenatal classes) and the one to one version (hiring a doula).
By the way, when I am talking about preparation here I am thinking both birth and preparation for postnatal life/parenthood.
1) The DIY option:
What is out there if you choose to teach yourself? Well , there are countless books, scientific and lay articles, blog posts, social media groups, and so on, on the topic of birth and parenting. You can pick and choose, read at your leisure, exchange ideas with people online, the list is endless. There is a lot to read. All you need is time and dedication. There is nothing inherently wrong from this approach, and it also complements well the other two approaches below. Coming back to the wedding analogy, “DIY” weddings can be quirky and wonderful. It’s going to be the right approach for some people. But for others, it won’t be. The tricky part with self learning is that, at least at the beginning, you might not be able to discern between what is based on facts and what is merely an opinion, or just plain untrue, or not right for you. Because you do not know what you don’t know, you might miss out on important facts that you didn’t know about, or were relevant to your particular situation (the “I wish I had known…” situation). What your friends rave about may not suit you, but you may not know that until you try it so you might end up spending your money on books and equipment for nothing, or you could end up buying into ideas that will actually turn out to be wrong for you and your family. The opinions you’ll get from exchanging knowledge with others are also unlikely to be unbiased, because people will tell you what worked for them or what didn’t. It might not be true for you and your baby. The costs range from free (reading online, getting books from the library etc), to quite a bit if you end up buying a lot of books and equipment. You will also need to invest a lot of time-which you may not have.

2) The group approach
What about antenatal classes? These tend to be done in groups of various sizes, which means you might get a great social support network out of them (which is I believe one of the top reasons people sign up for them). There is a whole range out there, from NHS classes to various private classes like those provided by the NCT (which are free for low income couples by the way) and various other organisations. Some classes are generally birth and parenting knowledge based (a mix of physical emotional and practical knowledge), some focus more specifically on some aspects of birth preparation (like Hypnobirthing classes), and some are exercise and/or relaxation based (like pregnancy yoga). The exercise based classes also usually incorporate an element of discussion. Partners usually accompany you to the group classes. Private classes are usually facilitated by people who are knowledgeable about birth and parenting, and passionate about empowering parents. There is a chance to ask questions and find out about a whole bunch of information you didn’t know existed, and build your confidence. Coming back to the wedding analogy, this is the equivalent of booking in a venue that provides all the catering under one roof-there will be choice, but from a limited list. You just need to make sure you pick the right venue. Because the classes are group based, there may not be enough time to address your individual concerns and needs in the depth that would suit your needs. Your teacher might be available to answer your questions by email between classes , but won’t be available 24/7 when you need support. You can also book one to one antenatal classes. Prices range from free (NHS classes) to about £200 to £400 for knowledge based group classes. The time is usually something from around 6 to 16h for a course.
3) The one to one approach
What about hiring a doula? A doula is like having your own birth coach. A doula will provide truly individualised support, and guide you through the maze of conflicting information, using her intuition and the information you give her so suggest links, articles, books etc which are more likely to float your boat. She will be there to hold you and your partner’s hands every step of the way, making sure you have all the information you need, all the emotional support you need (she will always be there for you-if you have a questions or a wobble, she is only an email, text or phone call away), that you and your partner feel confident and prepared for the birth and postnatal period (out of the three options above she is also the only one who can be there to support you both DURING and AFTER the birth as well as before). She will help you write your birth preferences. Your doula will meet you in the comfort of your own home at least a couple of time during your pregnancy so you get to know her and become comfortable with her, and there is no limit on email and phone support. This is truly one to one tailored to you need support in every sense of the way. In wedding analogy terms this is like hiring a wedding planner, and everything being bespoke. I have written a specific blog about that-Ten things a doula does to prepare you for the birth of your baby. What about the costs? Hiring a doula ranges from free (couples in receipt of benefit can apply for the doula UK access fund) to around £300 to £400 for a mentored (newly qualified) doula, to £600 to £2000 for a recognised doula. The time involved is usually at least 4h to 6h of antenatal face to face time, as well as unlimited email and phone support, and support throughout the whole of your labour and birth, be it 3h or 3 days long.
So there you have it-three options to prepare for birth and parenthood-they aren’t mutually exclusive either. But it’s good to know what is available, and what you get for your money 🙂
I know I’m biaised because I am a doula. And I also know I haven’t written any disadvantages of hiring a doula, but this is because I genuinely cannot think of any! I once was that pregnant mother myself, and I had a doula, and I know how much of a difference it made. It is difficult to describe with words, and often, mothers don’t really understand the full value of their doula after they have been doula’ed themselves. This is what led me on this path. I feel very strongly that every woman deserves a doula.
If you feel drawn to working with me as a doula, look here. If you are a birthworker and this resonates with you-you can find the workshops I offer here.
August 3, 2016
The slow disappearance of homebirth services, the erosion of women’s choices and the need for respect and kindness.
This week I received an invitation to a group called “save our homebirth team”.
It broke my heart, because this a campaign against the disappearance of the dedicated homebirth team in Peterborough.
Peterborough is one of the few trusts in the UK that still has a dedicated homebirth team.
This means that there is a group of midwives there who are not only confident and skilled at supporting homebirths, but when a couple books a homebirth, the team arranges for them to meet every single one of the midwives in the team. This ensures that they actually know the midwives who are going to come and support them during their birth. How awesome is that?
Nowadays in my antenatal classes, I mostly hear stories of women telling me that they rarely see the same midwife twice during their pregnancy. They say the appointments feel like box ticking exercises, and that they don’t trust the midwives they meet. Why would they? How do you trust someone you don’t know?
It didn’t used to be like this.
Ten years ago when I was pregnant with my son, Cambridge used to have a caseloading community midwifery team. During my pregnancy I saw the same midwife at every appointment (and the appointments were about 20 min long). She came to visit me at home a couple of times, and when I was in labour, as she was on call then, she came and supported me through the birth. I didn’t quite realise how lucky I had been to have this kind of continuity of care. My midwife was also very experienced, reassuring, and confident enough in her own practise to fully support my decision to refuse an induction (My son was born at home 16 days after his “due date”).
Three years later when I was pregnant with my second child, I had started my childbirth educator and doula journey and I felt I couldn’t take the risk of having a stranger turning up at my birth, so I hired independent midwives. It makes me so sad to think that not all the women who psychologically need this kind of care can afford independent midwives.
We know for a fact that continuity of care leads to better outcomes for mothers and babies. Beside the science backing this up, it makes sense, right? How on earth is a midwife going to know a pregnant mother is out of sorts, or more swollen than usual, or any other mental or physical signs are off, if she has never met her before?
We know that mothers prefer it, and that staff prefer it too, if they are adequately supported, with caseloads that are appropriately sized.
The trend towards team midwifery and lack of continuity of care is worrying enough, but I am now seeing a more worrying trend: the looming disappearance of homebirth services.
Kings Lynn’s hospital stopped providing a homebirth service a few years ago – this has been the object of a campaign called Birthplace Matters (the brainchild of doula Paula Cleary) which has resulted in the Trust being criticised by the Ombudsman for its inadequate provision for choice of place of birth but has sadly not yet resulted in the reinstatement of services.
In Cambridge, where I live, we used to have a higher than average homebirth rate. When I started working as antenatal teacher in 2010 it was 6%, well above the 1% national average. In my antenatal classes, I used to have a homebirth couple in almost every class. Now it’s more like one or two per year (running monthly classes).
Since the local birth centre opened in 2012, the homebirth rate has steadily decreased to about 1%. This is partly due to the birth centre attracting potential homebirth couples, but I believe it’s also down to a lack of commitment to promoting homebirth from the local NHS trust.
Until last year we were lucky enough to have a fairly healthy homebirth service; whilst we heard stories of women being refused a homebirth in other parts of the country, it didn’t seem to happen here.
It all started to change last October, when a pilot was put in place at the local hospital. Instead of having two community midwives on call for homebirth at night, there is one, working an ordinary shift in the hospital.
Since then, several things have happened.
Couples planning homebirths have received letters telling them that the trust cannot guarantee a midwife will be available to support them at home. Whilst I understand that the hospital needs to be honest with women so they can make informed decisions, women booking hospital births are not being officially notified that the hospital may be short staffed or even closed when they go into labour.
The trust even has a statement about this on their website
“ The maternity service at the Rosie supports home births however it is acknowledged that at times this will not possible due to staffing and/or workload both within the hospital and/ or community. Should it not be possible to support a homebirth then a woman in labour will be asked to attend the Rosie(or if on divert to a neighbouring unit ) where there is a midwife available to care for her. In the event of a labouring woman being unable to make her way in or declining to attend and the unit is unable to attend the birth at home then an ambulance will be sent to facilitate transfer to a unit where a midwife is available to provide care.”
As you can imagine the recipients of this letter were very distressed, and the statement above doesn’t exactly inspire confidence to potential homebirth parents. You can read more about that here.
Since the change has happened, I have heard several stories of births for which a midwife wasn’t available and how distressing this was for the mother in labour.
In my antenatal classes, I have also heard stories of disgruntled couples who were in the birth centre, then their midwife told them she had to leave because she had to attend a homebirth. This gave parents the impression that a homebirth was more important than them. I wish different language had been used. For example, the midwife could have explained that she was community based and if a call came from the community she may have to go.
I just do not understand the logic.
I know the NHS finances are in a terrible state, but when the Birthplace study shows us that homebirths are significantly cheaper than hospital births, (and also that homebirth is very nearly as safe for healthy first time mothers at home than in hospital, and safer for second time mothers), that homebirth are less likely to result in costly interventions, when the NICE guidelines were changed last year to reflect this, surely there should be a concerted effort to INCREASE the homebirth service and to actively promote it rather than trying to scrap it?
Yet it seems that the opposite is happening.
I am by no means trying to say that everybody should birth at home by the way. I have been in the birth field for long enough to know individual perceived safety is, and that women should birth where they feel the safest. For some it’s at home, for some in a birth centre, for others in an obstetric unit. I have no issues with that.
What I have issues with, however, is that women appear to be having their choices restricted. It is paramount that these choices are respected, not just because many women prefer to birth outside the hospital but because for many women, it really is the only psychologically healthy option for them.
Asking some women to go to hospital is like asking a soldier to return to the battlefield that caused his shellshock.
I believe that women cannot make fully informed choices when they aren’t informed of all the options, their pros and cons (teaching antenatal classes for the last 5 years have showed me how many misconceptions people have about the safety of homebirth), and also being confident that the option they choose will be available.
For homebirth to become normal like it is in some countries like Holland, or even some parts of the UK where the homebirth rate is closer to 10%, there needs to be a concerted effort from the NHS to promote it as a valid choice.
Legally, where we choose to give birth in the UK doesn’t fall under the remit of maternity care, it falls under the remit of human rights.
Some countries in Europe, in particular Hungary, have banned homebirth. In 2010, a Hungarian homebirthing woman called Anna Ternovsky challenged her country in the European court of human rights, and won the case. The court ruled that meaningful choice in childbirth is a human rights issue, and that birthing women are the ultimate decision-makers regarding the circumstances in which they birth their babies. You can read more about women’s rights in childbirth on the Birthrights website.
Beside the decrease of women’s birthing options, I am also seeing a worrying trend towards disrespect of women’s choices within the health system in general. I see a lot of coercion. I hear a lot of “do as you’re told, or else”. This week I was told of a new mother who was threatened with a report to social services when she tried to discharge herself from the hospital against medical advice. Earlier this year a client of mine chose to go home to wait for labour to start on its own rather than consenting to induction, and was told by the midwife as she left “I hope you don’t have a stillbirth during the night”. Another one wanted to wait for labour too and was also told “your baby might die”.
Health professionals, I just don’t get it.
I know you want what you think is the best for the mother, but do you think for one second that the mother doesn’t have the best interests of her unborn child at heart?
Do you think there is any mother in the world who is going to put her unborn baby willingly at risk of injury or death?
Do you realise you are in breach of your own code of conduct?
The code of conduct of doctors and midwives in this country is very clear on consent. The GMC guidance states that:
” You must respect a patient’s decision to refuse an investigation or treatment, even if you think their decision is wrong or irrational. You should explain your concerns clearly to the patient and outline the possible consequences of their decision. You must not, however, put pressure on a patient to accept your advice.”
Very clear right? Only I wish I witnessed it more often. From time to time I meet a refreshing doctor or midwife who really gets it. But they are a minority. It’s so unusual that I am in awe of them. I always mention it to the person in question how impressed I am by their bedside manner. What I see, most of the time, are various shades of coercion. Sometimes it’s gentle and well meaning, but it’s still coercion. What I believe happens is that most patients are compliant with medical advice and do not question things. Therefore I assume that medical professionals are used to this behaviour, and few get to hone and practise informed decision making on a regular basis. I also believe that the fear of judgement from peers and the fear of litigation, has a lot to answer for.
The other problem is that clinical guidelines and hospital policies are based on a population. They have to be. But you, an individual pregnant mother, are not the population. You are an individual, and as such you deserve an individualised plan of care.
I appreciate the words above are potentially upsetting. I am not writing this to cause upset.
I am writing this because I hope expectant and new mothers read this and that it helps them make more informed decisions.
I am writing this because I hope more expectant and new mothers can receive nurturing, individualised care.
I am writing this because I want to see more respect and kindness within maternity services.
I do not believe the system will change through people like me. I have been trying to make positive change happen for the last 5 years, by being a lay member of my local maternity liaison service committee and bending the ear of every health professional who will listen, with little results.
What I have seen however, is system changes happening when the people who use it (pregnant and new mothers) demanded it.
If you are pregnant, attend antenatal education, inform yourself about your birth and postnatal options, reach out to other mothers and to birthworkers and build up your knowledge so you can make the truly informed decisions that are right for YOU.
If you work with expectant parents, help them feel empowered enough to challenge the decisions that don’t feel right for them.
The more people challenge things, the faster it will change.

July 22, 2016

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