Maternal Mental Health | Blog

May is Maternal Mental Health Awareness Month with Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week being 29th April - 5th May and Maternal Mental Health Awareness Day being Wednesday 1st May. Theses awareness dates are dedicated to talking about mental health problems before, during and after pregnancy.

The awareness week is all about:

  Raising public and professional awareness of  perinatal health problems

  Advocating for women and families impacted

  Changing attitudes

  Helping people access the information, care and support they need to recover

The week is organised and led by MMHA member  Perinatal Mental Health Partnership UK  (PMHP UK),  PMHP UK is a small group of individuals, including parents with lived experience and clinicians, who came together to raise awareness of maternal mental health.

Having a baby can be an exciting and happy time. It is also a time of change and with this can come feelings of being overwhelmed, anxious and depressed. It is estimated that one in five women can experience emotional difficulties in pregnancy and the first year following the birth of a baby.

This can include feeling depressed or low in mood, but also feeling anxious or struggling with feelings and thoughts from difficult labour. Around 3% of women experience post-traumatic stress disorder following childbirth, with common symptoms including intrusive thoughts or images of the birth, nightmares, and feeling on edge or agitated much of the time.

About 2-3 in every 100 women experience obsessive-compulsive disorder in pregnancy or after giving birth. This can include worries about something happening to your baby or unwanted thoughts or images of accidentally or deliberately harming your baby, even if you would never act on these thoughts, experiencing them can be very distressing.

Anyone can experience mental health difficulties during pregnancy or following the birth of a baby. Fathers and co-parents also commonly experience significant changes in their mental health.

Common experiences of new parents and parents to be are:

Feeling tearful or low in mood
Feeling irritable or angry
Sleep disturbance not related to the baby
Loss of appetite or overeating
Feeling unable to cope or enjoy anything
Mixed feelings about becoming a parent
Anxiety about labour or the experience of difficult labour.
Worrying about the baby or keeping the baby safe
Worrying about being a good enough parent

Motherhood: Awe and wonder vs exhausted anxiety (A mother's experience)

Some days I wondered at the miracle of my body's ability to grow a perfect miniature human, and felt that this gorgeous being gave me a whole new perspective on the meaning of life. At other times the endless, lonely, sleepless nights, the unending questioning my own ability to parent, and the kind of anxiety I'd previously considered to be the domain of other people, threatened to overwhelm. My carefully constructed view of myself as someone who could cope with what life threw at me, was called in to terrifying question.

I was a competent and confident adult, I'd ticked all the boxes I'd laid out for myself by this point in life; career, tick, house, tick, husband, tick, baby, tick. I believed that if I applied myself to a goal, it was within my grasp, so it was somewhat disappointing to find that I did not excel at pregnancy. Endless sickness, exhaustion, discomfort, hormones that left me uncontrollably sobbing in my car outside work, confused as to why I felt so sad and completely overwhelmed. At the same time an excitement, mostly if I'm honest for buying the cute baby accessories for this unknown being to come, and the prospect of a year off work.

Then again to my dismay, it seemed I wasn't to excel at giving birth either; a stalled labour and an emergency c-section later and I looked at my new companion more with relief than with love. I'm sorry little one, I failed at the first hurdle, I didn't 'give birth properly', I'll be better going forwards. But I am also so exhausted, and in so much pain, I want to crack on with acing motherhood as planned but I also badly want to just curl up and sleep and recover from the ordeal of growing a person through nine, vomit, hormone filled months, followed by the breathtakingly painful, exposing, whirlwind of giving birth.

Seems you'd not got the memo about recovery time and sleep. From feed to cry to nappy on repeat you were relentless. Cute but demanding (still true now). No one else had got the memo either it seemed - it wasn't about me now, all focus was on this bundle of loveliness who was running the show. Look after the visitors, look after the baby, talk about the baby, make the tea (why the hell was I the one making the tea?!), get out for a walk - prove how quickly you're recovering, get the hang of giving self post c-section injections, have staples removed, stare at new body in revulsion and disbelief, make new friends (must have mum friends, tick), join baby group, wash hair, apply make up (standards to maintain), resume sex life (must be good wife). Still no sleep. Recovery time a distant dream.

Always. Remain. Positive. This is a blessing that you chose. Suck. It. Up.

You grew on me. No rush of love for us my dear. More the heavy weight of responsibility - and I took that responsibility very seriously, I wasn't going let anything bad happen to you. I'd previously struggled to keep houseplants alive, the enormity of the task of being the last line of defence between you and death was terrifying. Failure not an option, anxiety my new companion.

You grew on me. No rush of love for us my dear. More the heavy weight of responsibility and I took that responsibility very seriously, I wasn't going let anything bad happen to you. I'd previously struggled to keep houseplants alive, the enormity of the task of being the last line of defence between you and death was terrifying. Failure not an option, anxiety my new companion.

You were slow to learn to smile, long weeks of desperate anticipation of a sign that my efforts to be a good mum were not in vain. Then finally a glimpse of the personality to come, a reassurance that you liked me after all. A growing sense of contentment when you napped on my chest, maybe we'd be ok?

Days turned to weeks, turned to months. One foot in front of the other. Feed, cry, nappy, repeat. I remember being in the car with your dad, maybe four months in and breaking down; 'but when do I get a break, it's too much, I'm too exhausted', turns out there are no breaks really, an hour off isn't restorative in the face of the enormity of keeping you safe. Mask back on.

Must. Remain. Positive. You chose this. You're lucky.

I look back now at this period of my life and I can see how much I was struggling - but also how desperate I was to appear to the rest of the world like I was coping fine. Really no one knew, and with the wisdom of hindsight, I know that if I'd reached out, there were people who would have listened - and that would have helped.

I, like so many mums didn't feel deserving of support - parenting is tough right? you just need to 'get on with it'. If I could go back to talk to myself in that exhausted, anxious, lonely time, I'd be far more compassionate than I was back then - yes, parenting is tough, sometimes it feels too much, there's no shame in admitting to finding it hard or in asking for help.

Our support

The Norfolk and Waveney Talking Therapies has a designated perinatal pathway, which is supported by clinicians who have a specialist interest in working with people in the perinatal period (pregnancy and the first two years of having a baby). We offer one to one talking therapies , including guided self help, cognitive behavioural therapy, counselling and other talking therapies. NHS talking therapies offer NICE recommended talking therapies for depression and a range of anxiety disorders.

We also offer 1:1 support and anyone in Norfolk aged 16 or over can  self-refer  or give us a call on 0300 123 1503 (Monday to Friday, 8am - 8pm).

You can self-refer without having to see your GP or getting a diagnosis.

We also offer:

Social Events (online & in person)

Employment support

Peer Support

Podcasts and  blogs

Other useful resources and links: