Putting the World to Rights

Putting the World to Rights

The importance of community for new mums.

Brigid Godwin

March 2021

I feel compelled to state the obvious. This year has been a right plate of tripe. Fair to say the full spectrum of emotions have been covered several thousand times. Stressed, bored, happy, anxious, angry,  thoughtful, bewildered, compassionate, withdrawn, worried. We have had our own personal struggles and felt the struggles of others.

The people I work with have certainly struggled. They are pregnant women and new mums.

Even under normal circumstances, to say that pregnancy and motherhood bring women into extreme states of emotional intensity would be a radical understatement.

Even with a relatively ‘straight forward’ new baby after a relatively ‘straight forward’ birth, finding your way into parenting for the first time or re-jigging the dynamic with other kids, can be freakin’ bloody hard work.

Your hormones keep hijacking your rationale. You suddenly can’t ‘pop’ out to the shops or ‘nip’ to the gym, or even have a shower on your own. Breastfeeding might feel like medieval torture and you’re wondering if it’s normal to have a pelvic floor that needs scaffolding.

Your identity may be having a bar brawl with itself now that you aren’t working and haven’t yet established your new role as a mother. The concept of a lunch-break might make your feel like weeping with nostalgia. You are bombarded with advice and dazzled by choice and on top of this you haven’t had more than 2 hours uninterrupted sleep for months.

And then suddenly, you and your partner have to do all of this on your own. Pretty much all support has curtailed, digitised and socially distanced. Your parents and family can’t come and meet, let alone hold your new baby and you are worried that they may not be able to bond with them properly.

You can’t disburse the intensity of being at home 23/7 (oh that precious hour of exercise) by hanging out with friends, shoving baby into their arms and enjoying a few dexterous moments of using two pieces of cutlery at the same time.

You are struggling with breastfeeding, but all the breastfeeding support groups are shut or online and your internet connection is really rubbish. You have a WhatsApp group with your NCT friends which is great on one level, but you also feel there is a slight one-up-woman-ship going on, although it’s hard to properly judge as it’s mostly emojis (how many smiley poos can you get into one message???).

You suspect that you shouldn’t still be peeing yourself 3 months after giving birth even if you had a third-degree tear. The only help available from the NHS at this time is a phone call from a physiotherapist. Frustrating for both of you. This leaves you feeling distressed and concerned that you may have permanent damage. 

You can’t attend baby groups which would have given your day structure, given you reason to shower and dress before lunchtime, got you out of the house and offered opportunities to meet other new mums which would have reminded you that you have a sense of humour.

Your baby, who is obsessed with faces and expressions, only gets to see you and your partner and doesn’t get the vital stimulation and social interaction offered by these baby groups. This makes you feel more than sad and perhaps even guilty, even though you know it’s not your fault.

It’s difficult to exercise because the gyms are shut, and postnatal yoga and Pilates classes are only online. That doesn’t work for you because your toddler climbs all over you the second they suspect that you might be doing something where they aren’t the centre of attention. You know you need professional advice before starting exercise again so it’s easier to do nothing. This makes it hard to lose your baby weight and this makes you feel frustrated and low. Also, you aren’t getting the vital endorphins you need to help you feel good and counter the effects of what is essentially a mini menopause caused by the huge drop in progesterone. And you are still not getting enough sleep!

You wonder if it’s normal to feel like you aren’t coping but you don’t want to go to the GP because you know how pressured the NHS are. So you troop on.

Sadly, these are stories from ACTUAL women who I’ve worked with over the last year. It’s more than heart-breaking.

Men and women deal with stress differently. Typically, men withdraw to their cave when they are unable to ‘solve’ a problem. They want to be alone to mulch things over. Women, on the other hand, usually want to reach out to their support network in a need to share the shit, chew the fat, have a natter, gas away for hours, moan, cry and laugh. They go over and over and probably over again without necessarily needing a solution presented to them.

This difference is partly (or maybe fully) explained by the hormone oxytocin. This is a hormone that is well understood in its role through pregnancy and childbirth (see my other blog post ‘All We Need is Love’). It’s the hormone that makes us feel love and connection and is the facilitator in the bonding of one mammal to another (yes that includes you and your fur-baby too!). It’s a ‘hug drug’, only without the comedown.

It is also the hormone that stimulates the uterine surges during labour, the milk let-down reflex, is released in bucket loads during sex, massage and consensual touch. It’s even produced when we spend time or even think about spending time with people who make us feel loved and connected.

Possibly less know is oxytocin’s role during stress. When women are stressed, they release oxytocin as well as the other hormones usually associated with stress like adrenalin and cortisol. These stress hormones increase your blood pressure and cholesterol and suppress the immune system. Oxytocin helps to protect women from the possible harmful effects of these stress hormones by scaling back their production, lowering blood pressure and cholesterol and increasing immune function again. This goes some way to explain why women have a longer life expectancy than men.

But the other really interesting thing is that when oxytocin is released in stressful circumstances, it actually makes women crave physical contact with friends and family.

‘’When it is operating during times of low stress, oxytocin physiologically rewards those who maintain good social bonds with feelings of well-being. But when it comes on board during times of high social stress or pain, it may "lead people to seek out more and better social contacts," ‘’

 https://www.apa.org/monitor/feb08/oxytocin

Your stress response is telling you that you need support and it’s encouraging you to go and find it! That’s why women pick up the phone to our friends and gnash away for hours when we’re having a difficult time.

Men, on the other hand, do not produce as much oxytocin as women when under stress.

‘’Interestingly, men also secrete oxytocin when under stress, but they produce it in lesser amounts than women do, and its effects are inhibited by male hormones such as testosterone.’’

 https://www.webmd.com/women/features/stress-gender

So, you will find when a man is stressed he is more likely to either withdraw into himself or display behaviour that is more aggressive and driven by the ‘fight or flight’ hormones, adrenaline and cortisol.

All humans need contact to thrive. This last year has been a disaster for the mental health of so many people, having been denied this very fundamental need for contact.

New mums are the most precious corner stones of society. They are the ones nurturing the next generation of Earthlets into the world. A mothers’ mental health can dictate the capacity for her child to develop empathy and confidence. A mum who is struggling will not be giving optimal care to her baby and her family. Mums are the ones who have the pressure of not only a job but also (usually) the lionesses share of the childcare and housework. They are dealing with new and sometimes extreme and multileveled stress. Over the last year they have suffered deeply by being denied access to their natural coping mechanism for dealing with this stress – peer group support and social contact.

Thankfully the government have eventually acknowledged this desperate need that women have to connect by being lenient on restrictions for new parent support groups.

I am over the moon that I’m able to resume my Mummy & Me Postnatal Yoga and Baby Massage classes IN PERSON again from 21st April at Ridgewood Village Hall, Uckfield and Flourish Wellness (at Kingdom), Penhurst).

Come and join the tribe! Connect to your people, make new friends, get your body back, bond with your baby through song, massage and play. The café will also be open at Kingdom for you to enjoy your coffee and cake as you put your world to rights.

Wednesdays 12.45pm - 2pm from 21st April. Ridgewood Village Hall, Uckfield. www.unityyoga.co.uk

Thursdays 9.30am – 10.45am and 11am – 12.15pm. 22nd April 2021. www.flourishwellness.co.uk.

Fridays 10.45am - 12pm. www.flourishwellness.co.uk.

Brigid Godwin is a Developmental Baby Massage Teacher, a Yoga Alliance Senior Yoga Teacher, a Birthlight Perinatal teacher, an Active Birth Teacher (trained by Janet Balaskas), a KGH Hypnobirth trainer, a BWY 500 hour yoga teacher. She is currently training to be an Advanced Postnatal and Pregnacy Wellness Practitioner. She has over 20 years teaching experience. 

She runs Postnatal Yoga and Baby Massage classes for mums and dads in Tunbridge Wells, Penshurst and now Uckfield. Pregnancy Yoga, Active Birth and Hypnobirth classes for couples also available.

www.unityyoga.co.uk/ 07702751143