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Perinatal Mental Health
You might be thinking; ‘What is perinatal mental health?’
Perinatal refers to the period from pregnancy, birth and the first year after birth.
Mental health often carries a stigma, however in truth we all have a mental health and most of us will experience some difficulty with this, often hidden aspect of health, at some point in our life.
Life changes such as becoming a parent, looking after our growing families, often while juggling work and other relationships can be stressful.
Additionally the perinatal period is often marked with difficulty or trauma.
This can include difficult, lengthy fertility journeys, recurrent miscarriage, difficult pregnancies, birth trauma, birth injury, poor postnatal care, breastfeeding difficulty, NICU stays, coping with reflux and more.
As well as coping with these very common difficulties and stresses there is often a huge shift in identity, impossibly high personal standards to met, and a changes in relationships with partners too.
To say ‘it’s alot!’ is an understatement for many.
We understand these challenges because we have our own lived in experience that we recovered and grew from. These difficult experiences with our own mental health eventually prompted us to retrain as mental health professionals. Together we have over 20 years supporting parents as they find their own way towards their own goals for health and wellbeing.
Here are some of the things that parents say that they want to focus on when we start working together:
- ‘I would like to feel more confident and trust myself as a parent’
- 'I would like to be more present for myself and for my family’
- ‘I would like to feel like I can have more children’
- ‘I would like to feel better about myself’
- ‘I would like to let go of the past trauma’
- ‘I would like to be heard and understood’
- ‘I would like to feel peaceful again’
- ‘I would like to break the cycle of generational trauma’
- 'I would like to feel like I can cope'
Often these answers only come about after a lengthy discussion about what is currently bothering them, what is hurting, what is causing their pain.
Only by understanding what troubles parents can we together become curious about what they will experience when that problem has gone.
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