10 Things I Like To Share With All Pregnant Women

I write today from the couch. I’m cuddled up next to my third child, my baby. I still call him my baby but he’s somehow already three and a half. A baby no more. He is on day five of sky high fevers and back-to-back Paw Patrol and we’re not sure exactly what’s going on. A virus perhaps. Maybe it’s bacterial. His doctor isn’t sure but prescribed antibiotics anyway. Should we give them to him? Should we wait and see? I’m seasoned at this back and forth — my son has two big sisters and I am almost 10 years into my parenting journey. But alas, I am no less anxious than the day I became a mother back in 2014.

The truth is, when you become a mother you worry like you have never worried before. You become vulnerable in a way you have never been. The stakes have never been higher. And for someone already anxious like I was, the spiralling and intrusive thoughts and hectic internal monologue became even more intense the second I saw those two pink lines on a pregnancy test for the very first time, sitting on the edge of my bathtub in my New York City studio apartment, knowing my life was forever changed.

Today I work as a doula and support women and their partners — if they have one — through the tender days of pregnancy, birth and early postpartum. I educate them, inform them, advocate for them and hold their hand through it all. It’s an honour and a privilege and I still cry every single time I watch a mother birth her baby into the world. A large part of the role that I play in these women’s lives is to hold space for them as they share their fears and unpack their feelings about pregnancy, birth and becoming a mother, be it for the first or fourth time. I’ve learnt so much from these women as I’ve witnessed them wrestle with the huge mind, body and soul shifts that define this journey. It’s a transformation like no other and with it comes change, growth and questions — so many questions. 

As a doula, I wish everyone at the beginning of their pregnancy had the opportunity to sit with women who have walked this path before them and be gently guided by their wisdom. The words that follow here are a little taste of that wisdom, gained through my own personal experiences of birthing and mothering three children and from supporting hundreds of families on the path to parenthood. Worldwide, an estimated one in 10 women suffer from postpartum depression and many of those also experience prenatal depression and/or anxiety. Postpartum psychosis affects one to two women in every thousand. Suicide is one of the leading causes of maternal death worldwide. Mothers are suffering because we simply don’t have enough support. In an ideal world, our government would fund postpartum care in the form of doulas, midwives, lactation consultants, physiotherapists and psychologists to provide every woman the care they need and deserve. As it stands, most of us are given just one lacklustre postpartum checkup at six weeks and sent on our way, left to navigate the rest on our own. It’s simply not good enough.

If you are pregnant or hoping to be one day, I hope what follows helps to shape and guide your journey into this magnificent unknown. Because it is so magnificent and wonderful and hard and joyful and all mothers deserve to be held and reminded that they are doing so well. 

Always my number one piece of advice for any woman at any stage of her motherhood journey. It’s so important to remember this always, and to remind yourself of it on the hard days. You will make many mistakes as a mother. This is a rocky and wonderful road. Take moments in your day to breathe, practice self-compassion, make space in your life for the things you love to do and never forget you are doing beautifully.

Motherhood is the ultimate lesson in surrender. Your life, body, mind, identity, relationship, friendships, career and family will change with every new child you bring into the world and I gently remind mothers to welcome these shifts because the more we resist them the more challenging the experience can be. Everything is a cycle. Surrender to the season you are in and like all seasons, you will emerge from it renewed and ready for the next.

You may have read about all the ways you and your partner can physically prepare for a healthy conception (eat well, no alcohol, cleanse your environment of toxins, take prenatal vitamins), but it’s just as important to nurture your mental and emotional health during this time. Pregnancy will challenge your mind in many ways, none of which you can predict right now. If you have a history of depression and/or anxiety, both can become heightened during the perinatal period, so it’s important to seek healthcare professionals who support you and listen deeply to your hopes, fears and anxieties through this time.

And by positive, I am not necessarily talking about a physiological (vaginal, no intervention) birth. A positive birth experience is one in which you felt heard, cared for, respected and safe. I have witnessed time and time again how a supported pregnancy and birth journey brings peace to the motherhood experience and provides a source of strength when a mother needs it most. During pregnancy, choose a birth team that is respectful and supportive of your choices and consider hiring a doula. Doulas fill a huge gap in our current maternity system, which is so stretched that doctors and non-continuity of care midwives have little time to support a woman beyond ensuring the physical health of herself and her baby. Doulas are non-medical and so our focus is on protecting your emotional health and ensuring you feel seen, heard and cared for in a system that has very high trauma rates (research has found one in three women identify their birth experience as traumatic).

Postpartum is such a big time – the most radical of life shifts. As a western society, we don’t do a very good job of protecting these tender first weeks for new families. Mothers are overwhelmed with visitors sometimes hours after giving birth, and those visitors often bring unsolicited and confusing advice instead of simply holding space for a new mother’s emotions. When planning for your postpartum, wield strong boundaries and only let those people in who will come to care for you, cook for you, listen without judgement and remind you to rest. The first 40 days postpartum is a critical time for you to heal and bond with your baby and you need to live these days in a safe and secure bubble with plenty of nourishing food, the comfort of close friends and family and big cosy bed where you should be resting for most of the day.

Many of the families I support plan beautifully for their first 40 days of rest but don’t think very far beyond that. I find that the six to nine month mark postpartum can be a really challenging time. All that immediate help is gone, your partner is back at work, your baby is probably still waking multiple times a night, exhaustion is compounding and there is a very good chance you are depleted of essential vitamins and iron, especially if you are breastfeeding and/or your period has returned. Make space in your postpartum plan to consider this time and think about what support you might need — think food, emotional support from family and friends, psychological support if you are finding the transition to motherhood challenging, care for your baby so you can have some timeout, and bloodwork to check for any depletion.

One of the most important things a mother can do is find her village. As you move into your new life as a mother you may find many of your relationships shifting too. There is grief and beauty in this transition as you seek the tribe of women you know will hold you through the messiness and intensity of life with little ones, listen without judgement and drop soup on your doorstep when it’s been a particularly tough week. Having a baby is a beautiful invitation into vulnerability and discovering you cannot do it alone. Make space for these women to come into your life and your motherhood experience will be so much richer because of them.

Matrescence is a term coined in the ’70s by anthropologist Dana Raphael to refer to a woman’s transition to motherhood. It is a complete hormonal, physical and spiritual shift but like so many female experiences it is not well understood and rarely acknowledged by society. As you move through the early years of motherhood it is very normal to feel that you are losing parts of yourself and you need to take time to acknowledge that and mourn what you are leaving behind. We don’t talk enough about this shift so it can feel lonely and isolating. Read as much as you can on the topic, listen to women’s stories and to take up space with your own so as a collective the silence around this most radical of life stages is broken and we can all feel less alone as we move through it.

I am very passionate about reminding couples to share responsibilities from the day their first baby is born. All current research points to the fact that women overwhelmingly take on the bulk of the mental load in heterosexual relationships and the only way to begin to try to prevent this in your relationship is to make all household work, family admin and emotional labour visible from day one.

I wish we spoke of the joy more. People love to tell you that you’ll never sleep again and that the toddler years are hell and that your relationship will never be the same and it’s all just so hard but actually? There is so much to enjoy. Having a child is the most incredible experience. It is ordinary and extraordinary and like nothing else on Earth. Enjoy them, breathe them in, hold them close and love their beautiful little souls that will teach you so much.