Mother & Baby Oct 19

press pause
You’ve
got this!
In the days, weeks and months after
birth, give yourself the credit you deserve, says Milli Hill
Words Milli Hill Photography getty images, adobe stock
Every woman who gives birth is a
hero, no matter what choices she
makes or how it pans out for her.
You only need to look at the
Positive Birth Movement’s social
media campaign #soproud –
where women and their partners share their
birth images and stories – to see that the
reasons for feeling proud are many and
various. Whether it’s birth without drugs or
having twins by caesarean, one clear theme
emerges: women appreciate having a space
where they can talk freely about their
experiences and give themselves praise for the
power and strength they found in themselves.
This space has been missing in our society,
where women are quickly discharged from
hospital, often with little or no support in
place at home, and left to get on with it. We’re
unable to worship, venerate, elevate and
cherish women postnatally. In other cultures,
there is often a mandatory period of rest for
new mothers, where visitors are
limited or kept away, nourishing
foods are prepared, and the
mother is massaged, sung
to, bathed, anointed with
oils or showered with
gifts. In Tanzania,
women are not
expected to do
anything other than
eat, sleep and care for
their baby for the first
four months, and when
they go anywhere, people
call out ‘Nawore mfee!’ (‘She
has just given birth’), signifying
‘My motherin-law
would come
round so it wasn’t always
just us and the baby. She
held Robin while we ate.’
Carly Plumridge, 26, from
Peterborough, is mum to
Robin, six months
that she must be respected and given priority.
In China, new mothers follow zuo yue zi
(‘sitting the month’), resting in bed at the
home of their mother-in-law or mother for 30
days, keeping warm, and eating special ‘hot’
foods, according to the principles of yinyang.
While western women may not appreciate
mandatory rest at the in-law’s, they might
just like kraamzorg, a standard part of the
state-funded maternity-care system in the
Netherlands, where a home helper or
kraamverzorgster helps out for at least eight
hours a day, for eight days postpartum. The
kraamverzorgster supports the mother by
helping her to learn to look after
her newborn, get breastfeeding
established, cleaning her house
and making food for her.
In the UK and many other
countries, such as the USA,
postnatal care that nurtures and
cares for the mother is a long way
from our reality. There
are few spaces, rituals
or opportunities to
celebrate women’s
achievement of
bringing new
life into the
world. I asked a
group of women
via the Positive
Birth Movement
to describe their
postnatal experience.
While there were many
positives, women also,
somewhat reluctantly, admitted
22 | October 2019 | motherandbaby.co.uk