Having my fourth baby during a world-wide pandemic has been very different from the pregnancy right through to birth and now beyond.
I’ve spoken many times about the detrimental impact on maternal mental health during this time and how the care has been staggeringly different to before (not always bad but not always good) and how new first time mums that I have been able to speak to have been finding things really hard. I’m not surprised. How could they find it any other way?
It is a shock having a first baby whether you suffer with mental health issues or not, whether you take to it like a duck to water or not or whether you find it has met your expectations or not. You need comrades – I cannot imagine how tough that time would have been for me in isolation.
I had all the help in the world finding friends and places to be with my first because the world was wide open and free for all to join in.
Health visitors, midwives and my GP all pointed me in the direction of baby classes and clubs and every day I would troop off with Florence to something.
