I didn't know if I could write a hopeful book

my new book is here (and yes, I found the hope)

Dear new mum,

My new book is officially available to pre-order! It’s released in early July and available to order now from Australia, the UK + the US.

It cuts through the overwhelm and myth to give you evidence-based facts and kind reassurance.

You’ll likely read it from your third trimester to your baby’s first birthday because it guides you from planning for postpartum, into birth recovery, the first 6 weeks and the 4th trimester, and all the way through the highs and lows of maternal mental health, infant feeding and sleep.

It contains over 70 expert voices alongside the most recent research (that I’ve explained in very simple language so your sleep-deprived brain can easily digest it). It helped me makes sense of my own postpartum experiences even though I was well out of early motherhood when I wrote it.

Perhaps most pertinent is that it helped me make sense of my self. It will do the same for you.

There are so many experiences in early motherhood that are strange and discombobulating, painful and odd, and sometimes a bit unsettling. This book will remind you that you’re not alone and it will give you the information, guidance and reassurance so you can move into the next moment with ease.

It is deeply comforting to read that what you’re experiencing is normal and expected. Those words are repeated many times throughout the book because new mums always wonder: is this normal?

I started writing this book two years ago but really it began 17 years ago when I was tentatively feeling my way through the early months with my firstborn. Imagine if someone had soothed my concerns about not really knowing who I was by explaining that my brain had changed — fine-tuned and upgraded — to prepare me for motherhood (but they couldn’t because that research was published 10 years later!). One of the psychologists I interviewed referred to the ‘all-at-sea’ feeling of postpartum and that’s precisely what I remember; the sense of being completely untethered and not knowing my way through.

The maternal brain circuitry was one of the most exciting parts of research I delved into, and because there’s more scientists studying the maternal brain than ever before, we’re in a good place to uncover exactly what happens in pregnancy and postpartum to trigger psychological vulnerability and subsequent mental illness. Hormones are definitely at play but new research is also suggesting inflammation may be a contributing factor.

This was the hope I needed in what was, at the beginning, a really disheartening reality. I really didn’t think I’d be able to write a hopeful book; the facts were too confronting and the reality too disheartening. After birth, a mother enters a void of public healthcare and falls off what’s known as the ‘postpartum cliff’. It’s an emotive term for the fact that the attention immediately shifts to the baby and it’s reinforced by the minimal postpartum services budget in both Australia and the UK.

It’s not just the public health system that forgets about the mother. Look at the baby! Look at the baby! we commonly say, while the mother is pushed into the shadows. And many mothers will stay there, isolated in homes without support, navigating birth recovery and breastfeeding challenges, the grief of a changed body and for many, huge changes to her relationship with her partner. One in 5 new mothers experience perinatal depression and anxiety (1 in 10 new dads) and this is compounded by a cost of living and housing crisis that’s forcing new parents back to paid work earlier than intended.

It can be incredibly lonely and it can make you really angry.

It made me really angry. But then I started talking to the experts. I interviewed over 60 perinatal health specialists and doulas and I continued to hear the same stories. With a deeper understanding of what postpartum entails and what mothers need, I started with the basics.

The World Health Organisation has identified three pillars of a positive postpartum:

• conscious preparation - this informed the first chapter which is a thorough guide to planning your postpartum, ideally read in the third trimester of pregnancy

• active support - knowing what support you need is the first step, and then figuring out what support you want; rallying family, friends or a doula to step in a carry some of load. I encourage readers to connect with a perinatal health specialist in pregnancy, and have lactation + women’s health support lined up before birth

• realistic expectations - this is significant and I think it’s the part we often skip over. Postpartum isn’t a consistent bliss bubble of love; the love exists but it’s interspersed with the most confronting of emotions: rage, grief, regret, doubt, overwhelm - and experiences: pain, sleep deprivation, a body that functions differently, a scattered mind. It’s not all bad and it’s not all golden but to be realistic is to anticipate challenges

“When we looked at mothers who were flourishing and doing really well in postpartum, we lacked curiosity around that. We started looking at these women’s attitudes and perceptions of motherhood and how they were different. We looked at depletion and growth, and questioned whether they had a more compassionate lens. They weren’t stigmatising the struggle and they weren’t Pollyanna types either; they didn’t love every minute. But they were really good forecasters; they had realistic expectations of what life after birth would be like.” - Dr Aurelie Athan, head of Matrescence and Reproductive Identity, Columbia State University, NY

I wrote the entire book around these pillars because I want all mothers to have the information, guidance and support that is the foundation of a positive postpartum. All mothers need care, all mother deserve care, and this begins with education about what postpartum is. For so long it’s been understood as a 6-week process (it takes 42 days for the uterus to involute to near its original size) thanks in part to the medical model’s definition. But that’s the biggest lie ever told.

Postpartum is forever. It’s inevitable for all mothers; a slow and tentative unfurling which can also feel like an abrasive shock. And yet the word has become synonymous with depression. My publisher admitted that she’s not sure she would have published a book with ‘postpartum’ in the title five years ago. But change is happening and it’s happening fast.

There’s profound hope in this. We’re seeing more social conversations about all the seasons of motherhood and womanhood and how they inevitably inform each other. And we’re demanding change from the people in power.

There’s hope in the rise of doulas who are literally catching new mothers as they fall off the cliff, tucking them into bed and nourishing them with warm food and gentle words.

Hope is in the fact that maternal instinct has been debunked; from day one you’re learning and learning is a messy process that involves questioning, doubt, a sense of not-knowing, patience, perseverance and observation. All mothers move through this learning process with their babies.

Love is a learning process, too. In one of the most heartening interviews I did, consultant perinatal psychologist Julianne Boutaleb pointed out the one fact we keep skipping over: at birth, we enter a lifelong committed relationship with our baby. Love doesn’t always come easily or naturally, and when it does come it can be terrifying because we can’t bear to lose what we know we can’t live without. And then there’s the fact that it’s a relationship we can’t speak badly about and if we do struggle, it’s difficult to communicate that with other people.

“Attachment to a baby is a long-term process, not a single, magical moment. The opportunity for bonding at birth may be compared to falling in love — staying in love takes longer and demands more work.” - Dr T. Berry Brazleton

This book is dedicated to the next generation of mothers. But it’s also, perhaps more importantly, a rallying cry for support people to step up. A new mother will never forget how she was supported in postpartum.

If we want a society to respect and revere new mothers, if we want healthy families, we all need to know what practical, helpful support looks like. If you’re a neighbour or grandparent, partner or sister, auntie or friend, this book will help you better understand exactly what a new mother is going through. It provides essential information about how to support, what to say and the signs and symptoms of perinatal mental health concerns as well as a comprehensive list of health resources for any challenges that arise.

The best way you can support the new mum in your life? Read this book.

Lastly, pre-orders really determine the success of a book. When you order online or pop into your local bookstore, each order is tracked and noted. When bookstores notice a new title because of these orders, they’re more likely to stock the book and get it into the hands of the people who need it most.

I hand-on-my-heart wish this book existed when I was in early motherhood. It didn’t, so I wrote it.

Till next time, take care

PS: happy to answer any questions you may have in the comments