Postnatal support in the UK - guest post by Victoria Greenly
By Victoria Greenly
When my mother birthed me in the 1970s, she was encouraged to have a period of recovery in hospital to restore her energy so she could look after her new baby. When I birthed my baby in 2009, there was no encouragement from the NHS, society, friends or family of my recovery or understanding of the postpartum period in the UK. It had somehow been erased. Over the last decade or more, I have been trying to understand why this happened, why postnatal support is so important and how we can turn the tide to reinstate a more nurturing postpartum period.
Other cultures, like the Chinese culture, already know the importance. Chinese culture has had a confinement period after birth for millennia. And finally now, the practice of zuo yue zi or ‘sitting the month’ is grabbing the interest of UK postpartum doulas and new parents too. We are learning from other cultures and reintroducing our own ‘lying-in’ period. It existed at some point in our British cultural history and was lost because of pressure from a variety of factors. Unpicking its loss is complex but there are some answers.
From these answers, we can understand why the UK has one of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world, why we have such high levels of postnatal mental health issues and why we have such problems with physical recovery after birth. And with a growing number of British postnatal doulas and postnatal professionals, we can start to reverse the practice of ‘bouncing back’ too quickly.
Through highly skilled emotional, practical, physical and informational support, postpartum doulas can share resources, signpost on to other experts or practitioners, explore ideas and cocreate options.
We can give physical comfort ideas, remedies and recovery options – we may also have some additional therapies we can offer. We can be a listening ear for parents to offload on to, help them acknowledge the new emotions and feelings they are experiencing, put in practices for their emotional wellbeing and find a pathway of more professional mental health support if wanted or needed. We can hold their baby so they can have a sleep, support other children, make nourishing and nutritious food and keep on top of the house. We can help parents advocate for themselves with Health Professionals, give ideas for how they can make their wishes known and through that make informed choices that work for them and their new baby. We can support parents with how they feed, care for and bond with their baby. We do a lot!
In essence, we support the four ‘R’s: Rest, Recovery, Rehabilitation and Reevaluation. Each baby is unique and each new parent will want to experience their postpartum period in their own unique way.
Victoria is a postnatal doula, infant feeding counsellor, conference speaker and postnatal doula mentor and course provider. She has been passionate about the postnatal period for over 10 years.
Websites: www.youniquepostnatal.co.uk
Facebook: Younique Baby
Younique Postnatal
Insta: @youniquebabyandpostnatal
Email: Victoria.greenly@btinternet.com
Tel: 07802 976432