What is this quiet revolution in perinatal mental health?

Anyone who knows me will tell you I have a real fascination for the history of health and medicine, particularly when it comes to birth and maternal health. I love learning about common medical practices, beliefs and outcomes of...

When I first started teaching the TBR 3 Step Rewind technique to other birth professionals a fellow hypnotherapist messaged me. She said ‘Do you know if midwives and doulas are actually allowed to use the rewind technique? I don’t want you to get into trouble for teaching it if...

Have we normalised a bad birth experience?

When I originally met Sarah* she had come to see me for treatment for anxiety. I had no idea when she booked the appointment that she was a new mum, and had a baby just 5 months beforehand, she didn’t mention this in her original email. She had...

As strange and even ridiculous as this statement sounds it’s a more common thought to occupy the mind of new parents than you might imagine.

It might be tempting if you hear a parent say this, to mollify them. ‘Don’t be silly’ you might say. Or ‘that’s daft, a...

If there is one thing we should all know about perinatal mental health, it’s this:

I consider myself to be very lucky. I love working with parents because I know first hand how unhelpful perinatal anxiety is to the bonding process.

I know how damaging everyday anxiety is to our sense of...

As a pre & post natal specialist who hold groups for mums and babies you become used to reading the signs of a mum who has had a rough time with her birth. My heart aches for the women who tear up when others talk about their positive birth, or have to leave the room completely. The women who...

I am sure that many birth professionals reading this will think ‘I do offer a service to listen to folks birth stories.’ And I know that many will be listening and hearing parents birth stories as part of their role as a doula getting to know clients, or as a hypnobirthing teacher...

Research suggests that PNA is as prevalent as PND in new parents, effecting as many as 20% of parents in the first year. Yet, despite this many HCPs lack the knowledge to identify anxiety in new parents often dismissing what they hear as ‘normal’ worry.*

GAD scores are routinely used...

I will be completely honest with you, when I first decided to study Clinical Hypnotherapy, it was because of my own rampant problems with anxiety and addiction. However rather than face, what I perceived at the time, as the stigma of a mental health problem I decided to learn about my experience...

There are record numbers of nurses and midwives leaving the NHS and they are stating intolerable stress and pressure as the reasons, according to separate reports by the RCM and RCN.*

The numbers of nurses and midwives at a glance appear to be up because recruitment drives are bearing...

It was very upsetting to read about one of the biggest maternity scandals ever at Shrewsbury and Telford hospital trust last week. 40 years of ‘toxic’ culture within the maternity services there has lead to the uncovering 326 cases of suspected poor care.

‘Bill...

I started surveying parents about their debriefing experiences about a year ago.

My reason for the survey was because as a therapist working with traumatised parents I often heard that they had under gone a debrief with their HCP  and that very often it had been a re-traumatising process...