Maternal Mental Health
Closer Than You Think
Wherever you are whilst you are reading this, take a minute to have a think about all the women you know who are pregnant. Or have ever been pregnant, or want to get pregnant. It might even be You.
There is a good chance at least one of them has had or is in the grips of a maternal mental illness. You might have been aware of it. But you might not.
Because more than 1 in 10 women develop a mental illness during pregnancy or within the first year of having a baby.
Furthermore, 7 out of 10 of those women will underplay the severity of their illness. Why? Because having a baby is supposed to be the best thing ever, right? So, you don’t have a right to feel guilty about feeling even a teensy weensy bit hacked off at the lack of sleep. And feeling like a milk machine. Not to mention the mourning of the passing of your previous identity and independence. Right? Well, according to the glossy magazines and the adverts it seems to be the case. We see image after image of happy sleep-fresh parents strolling through leafy parks in their co-ordinated clothes. And mum back to their pre-baby weight a week after being post-partum and not a hair out of place.
Myth and Fantasy
I’m going to call it as it is. Complete and Utter Rubbish. It is a myth that is pedalled by people who want us to buy stuff by buying into an unrealistic version of an apparently perfect life. It took me 2 years and a half-marathon to get back to my pre-baby weight. And I don’t think my hair has been in place for 4 years and counting. Furthermore, I bet I’m not alone. And before people tell me I ought to be grateful, I am. I went through years of misery to have my daughter and there is not a day that goes without me being grateful for her. That doesn’t mean I lose my right to have other human emotions.
At a deeper and more fundamental level, too many parents worry that going through depression or anxiety means they will be deemed unfit parents, and this can be hugely damaging. It is an incorrect assumption. One “which is putting lives at risk and preventing people getting the support they deserve”. So says Carmel Bagness Professional Lead for Midwifery and Women’s Health at the RCN.
