Support before and after baby

Nothing prepares you for matrescence — the transition into motherhood. We talk openly about adolescence, that turbulent shift from child to adult. But almost no one talks about matrescence, the equally seismic shift into becoming a mother. I hadn't even heard the word until I trained in perinatal mental health myself. It felt like someone had finally named something I'd lived through blind.

Nobody talks about matrescence

Matrescence: the developmental phase of new motherhood — a transition when hormones surge, bodies change, and identity and relationships shift, much like adolescence.

76 days in the NICU

My triplets arrived at 29 weeks. Our smallest weighed just 880 grams and wasn't expected to survive. We spent 76 days in the NICU. No hour in that unit is the same as the last, no day the same as the one before. It's a trauma I don't think anyone can fully explain unless they've lived it — watching your babies fight for their lives, while nothing is about you anymore.

I am endlessly grateful to the Rotunda for saving my babies' lives. But you leave the NICU, and the support ends at the door. You're on your own, into this crazy parenthood world. That gap is what I became passionate about closing.

What came after

"You're on a ship you're keeping afloat, and you just keep going — until one day you finally sit still, and it hits you like a ton of bricks: how did I get through that?"

You come into parenthood with a picture in your head of the mother you're going to be. Mine got hit hard — by three very premature babies, by fear, by a body stuck in fight or flight, by appointment after appointment because your babies aren't full term, by diagnoses that fire the trauma back up again just as you think you're steadying.

You become their advocate and their protector in the middle of all of it, and there's no time to think, barely time to breathe. As parents, we go through so much more than anyone prepares us for — and it deserves to be understood, not just survived.

The mother you pictured

MY TRAINING COVERS

Grounded in knowledge, guided by compassion

As an Advanced Perinatal Mental Health Specialist (PMHI), my training has given me a deeper understanding of the emotional and psychological challenges that can arise before, during and after pregnancy. It allows me to recognise when extra support may be needed, have open conversations with confidence, and provide appropriate support or referral when required.

Matrescence & the foundations of perinatal mental health

Perinatal anxiety

Perinatal depression

NICU Trauma

Supporting struggles with fertility

Miscarriage, loss, stillbirth & pregnancy after loss

The challenges after baby arrives

Birth trauma

Relationship challenges

If any part of this story is yours too — you're not alone in it.

There is support for the part that comes after survival.