Catherine Cooper - TrustBirth

16/07/2024

Posted • We often worry a lot about new babies—Are they sleeping enough? Eating well? But what about the mother? Does she get enough sleep and support?

Society tends to focus heavily on the needs and milestones of the baby, sometimes neglecting the physical and emotional health of the mother.

It’s time to care as much for mothers as we do for babies. Mothers need love and support too.

Here’s how we can help:

🥘 Meal Trains
🧹 Tidy and Clean 
🧺 Fold Laundry
👂 Be a Listening Ear
🤱 Lactation Support
🎁 Care Package
🏃‍♀️ Run errands
💤 Enable rest
🙌 Keep showing up

When we help mothers, we’re helping babies too because a happy mother means a happy family. ✨🫶

🙋🏽‍♀️🙋🏽‍♀️What’s one form of postpartum support that you will never forget? Share in the comments below 👇🏽👇🏽
Follow for more postpartum and new motherhood planning, support and education.

xx,
Isobel
Postpartum, mom tribe, mom community, motherhood, matrescence, motherhood unfiltered, motherhood poetry, writing motherhood, new mother.
       
         
   
        

14/07/2024

This is so true and the impact of birth experiences is long lasting - positive and negative.

Posted • Just a quick reminder...

“The way in which a birth unfolds can have such an impact on a woman’s experience, for such a long time.”

Nadine and I wrote this line in “Birthing Your Placenta”, where we talked about the different options in that aspect of the birth journey, but it applies to every aspect of pregnancy and birth.

More at https://www.sarawickham.com/byp

23/06/2024

Posted • .rachel.reed Investing in women’s decisions also results in emotional burnout for care providers. Releasing that attachment is really difficult to do, but very necessary.
You can find more birth-related information on my blog, podcast, YouTube, articles, books, courses and collective at www.rachelreed.website or via the links in my bio.

12/06/2024

So true!

“We were never meant to live like this.

Want to know why you’re so tired?

It’s not just because your baby wakes all night. It’s not just because you’re nursing 24/7. It’s not because of your baby’s biological needs.

It’s because we were never meant to live like this. In so much isolation. So alone.

We were meant for a village. We were meant to lay in bed for weeks/months feeding and sleeping on and off with our new baby while our mothers, grandmothers, sisters, cousins, neighbors, and friends helped out.

But there is no mother bringing us food and water. No grandma cooking the meals. No sisters playing with the other children. No cousins folding the laundry. No neighbors taking care of the house, and no friends providing support.

Modern life is in constant conflict with childrearing and our biological needs.

From returning to work at 6 weeks postpartum to little to no support in the postpartum period.

The truth is many of us are just lucky enough to have someone drop a meal off but not lucky enough to have them actually come inside. And it’s not their fault. They don’t have a village either.

There’s never been a mother to bring them food and water.

Never a grandma to cook their meals. Never sisters playing with their other children. Never cousins folding the laundry. Never neighbors taking care of the house and never friends providing support.

Our babies are biologically designed to wake often and eat often. We are biologically designed for a village. Be easy on yourself and your baby. We were never meant to live like this.”

Gorgeous, honest post by ♥️♥️♥️

05/05/2024

It’s International Day of the Midwife.
Thank you to all of the amazing midwives all over the world.

04/05/2024

Posted • On World Maternal Mental Health Day, we’re here to remind you that your mental health matters, your trauma matters.

Flashbacks.
Nightmares.
Hypervigilance.
Rumination.
Delayed Bonding.
Dissociation.
Loss of self.
Regret.
Guilt.
Shame.
Depression.
Anxiety.

The list goes on after birth trauma. There is no part of our lives untouched.

Physical health is not the only health that matters, and more than that, physical health does not exist independent of mental health. They are inherently intertwined. Trauma is one the best examples of this.

While we are absolutely grateful to survive, that is the bare minimum. Surviving our traumatic birth experience does not equate to “a healthy mom and healthy baby.” Our health is so much more than merely surviving.

The irony of telling a person who is drowning in trauma to just be grateful they’re healthy would be laughable if it weren’t so harmful.

Each year, in the U.S. over a million pregnant patients will leave their birth experience with trauma. This experince of trauma has shown to not only increase the risk for PTSD, but also postpartum depression and anxiety (PPD & PPA).

Let’s stop telling individuals to just be grateful they survived the birth of their child. Instead, let’s keep talking about the ways to prevent and mitigate birth trauma while offering acknowledgment and resources to those who experience it.

30/01/2024

11/01/2024

This is an amazing opportunity to share your birth experiences
Posted • We are delighted to announce that Birth Experience Study (BESt) led by Dr and Professor .dahlen in Australia is coming to the UK! See my previous vid!

Joining 12 other countries, the UK arm will be led by Dr Claire Feeley at King’s College London with a small but growing research team that includes Dr Gemma McKenzie, King’s College London, Research Associate, Josephine Ash, Midwife, Dr Rebecca Moor Clinical Psychiatrist and Founder of , Dr Camilla Pickles, Durham University, Associate Professor in Biolaw.

The overall purpose of the project is to understand women and birthing people’s experiences of childbirth in the UK, including the factors that contribute to a good or bad birth experience, the prevalence of birth trauma and obstetric violence in the UK and how different models of care impact women and birthing people’s childbirth experiences.

The original survey was co-produced with key consumer groups in Australia, therefore, our most important job in the coming weeks is to engage with consumer and advocacy groups in and around the UK to join as collaborators on the project. We are committed to an intersectional lens and want to work alongside consumer and advocacy groups representing birthing women and people who have been systemically marginalised. We are particularly keen to work with groups that represent women and birthing people with disability; refugees or asylum seekers; the LGBTQIA+ communities; Black and Asian mothers and from all 4 countries of the UK.

If you’re interested in learning more about the project, please consider filling in this brief form (SWIPE RIGHT) and we’ll be in touch soon regarding an informational session so you can find out more!

Best wishes,
The BESt-UK research team

20/11/2023

💜 Are you pregnant, or have you given birth in the last year? 💜

Choice and decision making is a big part of your maternity journey and becoming a new parent. We would like to find out more about how you were helped to make decisions about your maternity care.

Please complete our survey to tell us about your experiences using this link: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/MTLPB6M

The survey is open until the end of the year and it would be great to have lots of input from women and birthing people in the Mid & South Essex area - the responses to this survey help to formulate improvement directives.