What is Maternal Mental Health?
Well, this covers all mental health related to feelings before, during and after pregnancy.
Untreated, perinatal mental illness is one of the leading causes of death for women during pregnancy and the first year after birth. According to figures from the NHS, up to 27% of new or expectant mums are affected by perinatal mental illness.
This post is going to be a personal one for me, I am a mum to four amazing children, and I have had mixed emotions with all pregnancies from fear of failure and judgement when I had my first child at 19, to the pure love and pride you feel watching them grow.
Harry, my fourth child, was born in October 2017. When he was handed to me, I was told he was healthy. Except he had a squeak when he was breathing. I was told it would settle, and it might be because he was cold, call it mothers’ intuition but I could feel something was wrong.
For the first 10 weeks of Harry’s life, we were in and out of hospital, he didn’t eat, he was constantly ill, and he slept all the time, this was the beginning of my battle for my son and for the doctors to take me seriously but also the beginning of my personal experience with maternal mental health.
You see when your child is ill and you’re explaining what you see happening to your child and it feels as though your concerns are not being taken seriously you can begin to question yourself. Is it me? Can anyone else see this? Do I have postnatal depression? Am I going crazy?
At 15 weeks old Harry was diagnosed with Tracheomalacia, an airway defect. This was the start of a long and arduous journey for me and my family, with a long stay in hospital and multiple operations, the mum guilt was real.
Will my other kids think I love Harry more? Will they resent us for missing school assemblies? Will all my friends get sick of running round after me to help with the kids? All these silly little thoughts that consume you whilst you’re trying your best can be overwhelming and take over your mind.
They say it takes a village to raise a family and luckily, I have an amazing one!
Harry is five now, we still have hospital visits and the occasional stay in hospital and sometimes those thoughts come back but this time on a different level of what will work say when I’m having to take time off for another appointment, will they think I’m not up to the job and they would be better if they hired someone else. I know deep down that they won’t think those things and my employers during this time have been really supportive but sometimes you can’t help but think and feel that way.
I think the point I’m trying to put out there is anxiety is a normal emotion, especially for mums. We worry about everything to do with our children, but sometimes it can get out of control and become a mental health problem.
So, let’s all look out for each other and talk if we need to and listen if someone wants to talk as hopefully the old saying will be true, “a problem shared is a problem halved”.
Do you have any questions about todays blog, need help in becoming legally compliant with contracts/policies or can we support you in taking away any people pains to give you peace of mind?
If you answered yes to any of the above, just give us a call at CUBE HR on 01282 678321, or book in a FREE 30 Minute HR Health Check here FREE HR Health Check and we’ll happily give your business a full HR overview with our personal recommendations absolutely FREE!
Why not also check out our blog on a similar topic Poor Mental Health at Work – What’s the cost?
We also have a YouTube channel with loads of handy videos outlining various HR related scenarios.
