Never Shake a Baby.
Shaken Baby Syndrome is a serious injury to the brain resulting from intentional head trauma which can occur when a baby is thrown, jogged, jerked, or shaken - often because the baby or child won't stop crying. It is the single most preventable cause of serious head injury in babies under 1 year of age in New Zealand. Babies, especially very young ones, have relatively large heads, and weak neck muscles, so any kind of violent movement will cause a kind of whiplash effect. A baby’s delicate, developing brain is much more sensitive to injury and serious damage than an adult’s.
Feeling 'touched out'!
You want to scream at the top of your lungs. Your body is so overstimulated, sore, tired and plain beat up. You don’t feel an inch of sexiness which only adds to the more guilt you feel. You have a love-hate relationship with breastfeeding. It’s only 12 pm and you have been touched a gazillion times!
You are so over it but no one understands. To make matters worst you are so fearful to express it because you will feel judged. You are burnt out and you are beginning to cringe when it’s time to feed your baby or “sexy time”. Am I a bad Mum/partner you think to yourself? Is there something wrong with me? Why do I turn away from being kissed by my partner? I don’t ever feel the need to be intimate anymore… what does this mean for my relationship?”
Advocacy during labour and the postnatal period.
Whether you give birth in the hospital, at home, an operating room, or in a warm bath or shower, labour and birth can be an arduous process. Almost inevitably, there will be choices to be made. Also, inevitably, it’s probably not going to go exactly as you had imagined, planned, or expected.
Postnatal Depression - you are not alone.
Sometimes, parents have difficulty adjusting to the many physical, emotional, psychological and social challenges of parenting. We know that everyone experiences symptoms of perinatal anxiety and depression differently. The way it affects you can depend on a range of factors. Your own physical, emotional and mental make-up and stressful external situations may combine to increase the risk of you developing symptoms of perinatal anxiety and/or depression.
