At first it feels luxurious, like you are an economy traveller who’s accidentally found themselves in first class. People are solicitous of your needs, they measure and assess you, looking for the signs that all is not well. You are asked how you are, and what your preferences are for giving birth. An array of professionals lines up ready to serve.
It is all very surreal if you haven’t had much to do with the health service. If you’re a healthy young woman, a 3 yearly smear test can be the extent of your interactions with the proverbial white coat. Suddenly you are the focus of attention – the scans, the iron tablets, the blood pressure cuff. It carries on a little after birth, with midwives and health visitors ticking items off their check-list of advice.
If you are really struggling, people may be more willing to intervene than before. Referrals might happen faster, early help meetings might bring a range of professionals together to see how they can support you. But there, at the heart of it all, lies the mummy paradox.
Never have you meant so much, to so many; but never have you meant so little just for yourself. Suddenly you are not just an individual with responsibility for their own well-being, able to make terrible choices and give in to terrible emotions. Now you are a vehicle of care – the means of nurturing a healthy child or alternatively the means of creating “adverse childhood experiences. You cannot be allowed to sink – because now you are a life raft for another tiny life.
All this is totally understandable. Children are not able to care for themselves, or stick up for themselves. The choices we make affect them not just in the moment but for the rest of their lives. Statutory services necessarily put children at the centre of all their interventions, their concerns.
The problem with that, though, is that mums can end up feeling like hollow shells. They lose any sense of their own importance. Their happiness only matters because their sadness can harm their child.
It is one of the reasons why peer support like that offered at the Happy Mums Foundation is so crucial. Here mums are the focus – they matter for themselves and not just as a conduit of care. And by building up their support networks and sense of self-worth, it makes them more able to parent.
Trying to recover from mental illness with the sole motivation of caring for another is always going to be an uphill struggle. It leads to guilt, shame and the temptation to pretend all is well rather than confront your problems.
It’s why we must never stop telling women who are also mothers that they matter. Not for their children, or for the future of society, but because they are people.
Some resources
Every Life Matters - a great personal planning tool to help get you through lockdown and manage your mental health. I particularly like the hope jar and the suicidal thoughts bits – too often mental health tools are all about relaxation and going for a walk – while these are important they don’t help me when I’ve lost hope.
Mind perinatal (around having a baby) guides - information, real-life stories and support about a whole range of mental health problems and coping with a new baby.
Elefriends - Mind’s online support group.
Samaritans – still operating by phone or email 24/7
Every Mind Matters - NHS national resources for mental health and wellbeing.
Rethink - How to cope with suicidal thoughts and how to talk to someone you are worried about.