Fast-paced postnatal period

In the past, when mothers birthed at home attended by the local midwife and supported by family and community to rest and recover for six weeks after birth, they were sometimes advised to gradually increase activity over the early weeks. This would progress ...

In the bed

On the bed

Around the bed

In our busy modern world where birthing in hospital is the norm and going home within days of delivering is typical, it is hard to imagine such a slow pace of resuming daily life.

The reality is most new mothers are up and about, attending appointments with nurses, lactation consultants, breastfeeding clinics, doctors, physiotherapists and other professionals who used to come to your bedside. There is shopping to be done (smaller onesies after all!), older kids to get to school and meals to prepare. The village network of support has evolved to videos shared on social media and face time when you get a minute.

Second-wave feminism told us pregnancy and childbirth are not illness - "peasant women" give birth at the side of the field and get right back to it (no they don't, only when their support system collapes) and you can too!

But with the average age at the birth of first child steadily increasing (The percentage of women having their first child over the age of 30 has risen from 23% in 1991 to 43% in 2011 and 48% in 2016.) plus a significant number of births being surgical

(The caesarean section rate in Australia has just reached 34 percent and is one of the highest rates in the developed world) we are seeing a very different situation to the past.

Establishing breastfeeding is possibly the biggest hurdle of the postnatal period. The percentage of babies fully breastfed at the time of discharge from hospital in NSW fell from 82.1% in 2011 to 72.6% in 2018. Access to support in the post-discharge period is critical for maintaining breastfeeding, yet many women face challenges getting the quality assistance they deserve.

With increased pressure on new families for mothers to return quickly to their productive paid work, the clock is ticking to recover from birthing complications, establish breastfeeding and get back to "normal" .