Mother & Baby Oct 19

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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
Bump&Birth MEET THE EXPERT Milli Hill is the founder of the Positive Birth Movement, author of Give Birth Like a Feminist (£14.99, HQ HarperCollins), and a mum of three motherandbaby.co.uk | October 2019 | 23
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Mother & Baby Oct 19

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