Would you go on a mothers mental health retreat without your baby?

[Fiep]

Hi, I'm after some opinions. I am probably just being silly because I am on maternity leave and my brain is understimulated.

I am a psychologist and had a recent experience of birth trauma. My LO is now 3m, after birth he spent some time in NICU. I am coping well now, but it wasn't easy.

Since then I have spoken to so many mums who have shared their difficulties with me around adjusting to motherhood, anxiety, mood, and trauma around pregnancy and birth. Hardly anyone has sought / had mental health support.

Coincidentally I also delivered a trauma therapy session at a women's retreat recently and LOVED it - all guests got so much better over the course of it and it felt really healing and empowering. I wished all those mums could feel that way.

It got me thinking it would be cool to have a retreat for mums specifically around trauma / mood / anxiety / adjustment to motherhood - but would anyone go without their babies? I'd have loved a break for a couple of nights and would have been happy so long as there was somewhere to pump (like a NICU style pumping room). I just feel the retreat wouldn't be as therapeutic with the demands of the baby there.

Obviously I recognise this may exclude some people - eg those who don't have a partner, or who breastfeed and don't express, etc. But my thought was to start simple with a retreat just for the women and if it all goes well then I could always do one for women plus babies (and support person on site), as this would be logistically a lot more challenging to set up.

Or would someone a bit further down the line, baby slightly older, still be interested in attending something like this or is the issue sort of buried by then?

Or the whole thing might just be a silly idea, I don't know.

When I had support from the perinatal mental health team bringing baby along was very part of what many Mum’s do.

Maybe you could target it for mums between baby 1 and baby 2. To prepare mentally for a second pregnancy after trauma.

DS was still feeding about three hourly at six months. At six months feeding at coffee breaks and lunch probably would have worked but I had no support person who could have lingered around all day bringing him for feeds. At three months a schedule would not have worked at all. You are still excluding lone and/or breastfeeding mothers.

I also could not have focused leaving him at a few months as I was used to him always being with me.

My exclusively expressed milk fed baby was still feeding hourly at 6 months, he was a nightmare, only settled for me no matter how much we tried to let his gran take him for a walk etc, I couldn't have left him. The first baby was in nicu for 4 months, I certainly had PTSD and anxiety (both diagnosed) and your retreat would have been exactly what I needed... however I couldn't let her out of my sight for over a year after she came home, that was part of my way of coping, if she was in my sight I knew we were both 'okay' in that we were both breathing. I can't imagine a time after either of mine where I could have left them and not just been worrying they were either hungry/chewy (standard second baby) or having a medical crisis (long stay nicu first baby).

Going against most of the posts here, but yes I would've!

Going to mental health care WITH my DS really didnt do what I needed it to. The idea of a Mother and Baby unit filled me with dread.

My DS is now 14, we're through it, he's awesome and I love him more than anything else in the world! 😍

I was thinking they could be with partners or support persons so now you need somewhere what a dozen?? Dad's can hang out, possibly with older kids, with mother's tooing and frooing to nurse at different times (it might be three hourly but if Betsie-Mai is 9.30, Billy is 10.30 and Darth is 11.15 that's a lot of coming and going.

I think they either need to be in with Mom or you need to reconsider your age range

@SleepingStandingUp I agree, or make it babies optional depending on what is easiest and most helpful to the individual mother.

Yep - agree with this completely

Yeah I'm in the "not leaving my baby" camp

I think this is a lovely idea but is there some reason it needs to be at 3 months post partum? If no babies are preferable, could it not be for women to attend at any point post birth? It would be more inclusive and women could come at the right time for them when they do feel able to leave their babies.

No way. I’m not sure what sort of trauma you’re specifically thinking about helping people with. I had a traumatic delivery under a GA, had lots of upsetting gaps in my memory and so many difficult questions on a loop in my head for a while afterwards. I had a debrief at the hospital - their idea - when she was 3 months old. It ended up lasting about 90 minutes, was extremely enlightening and helpful. DH was with me and he got to ask questions and find things out. DD was there and had a couple of feeds while we were talking. It was about healing as a family after we’d all been separated at her delivery - I was unconscious, he was kicked out of theatre, she was alone with strangers poking and prodding her. We both felt awful about missing her arrival in different ways though no one was at fault.

I can’t see what I’d have got from what you’re suggesting as what I went through involved all 3 of us and my favourite and most centring thing was being close to my baby, it still is and she’s 3.

Oh no not at all, mums would be welcome whatever age their babies. Older is probably easier! I think also some other posters were imagining newborns/ 4th trimester but that’s not necessarily who I had in mind. Although they’d be welcome of course!

I think where the 3m thing came from was me just using my own 3m (nearly 4m) old as a yardstick of what their needs are. Mine feeds roughly 3-hourly but he is also colicky and refluxy so I could never have him with me if I attended something. He just screams if awake and not feeding / briefly playing. And he won’t just stay on the boob and drift off either! Surely he isn’t the only unsettled baby?

I know other babies may be easier and may happily sit on mums for a while, feed, sleep etc but mine would disrupt everyone. I couldn’t even have him with me in a 1-1 session frankly or I’d spend the whole time rocking, shushing, patting while he cried…it would be really stressful and I’d feel worse having tried to attend something.

I think that’s where the idea if of no babies came from. Having babies there excludes people too: those with unsettled babies (which incidentally is a risk factor for worse mood disorder postpartum).

I can totally see why those with more settled babies would want to take them. Maybe its a case of a day with, and a day without, and mums can choose what fits them best.

Sorry that was @Goldfishjones

Binky Felstead did something similar and it looked good. Veeeery expensive though I imagine.

I have PTSD from my birth. I wouldn't have left my baby but also I wasn't ready to even talk about or recognise that I had been traumatised that early on.

I had my birth de-brief when my daughter was ten, and I still felt very unprepared for the emotional fallout. I ended up having EMDR which has made a significant improvement but hasn't fixed it completely.

I think that’s where the idea if of no babies came from. Having babies there excludes people too: those with unsettled babies (which incidentally is a risk factor for worse mood disorder postpartum).
Why not just make it optional then? Though high needs babies can also be much harder to be able to leave with anyone else for any length of time.

They do these retreats in Germany. With babies!
and no way would I have left my babies, that would have stressed me out so much.

Is group therapy helpful for birth trauma? Personally I found it incredibly hard to listen to other people’s birth stories and hear their trauma until I had had a lot of work on my own story. This stopped me attending baby groups and lead me to avoid other people who had recently given birth.

I had a traumatic birth and terrible PND and would happily have left my baby but it would have been the absolute worst thing for me and for our bond. I’m surprised you’ve suggested it as all the medical professionals I encountered during that time emphasised how important it was for me to spend as much time with her as I could, as regularly as I could. (I mean that genuinely, not sarcastically - it’s just a different approach than I would have expected.)

My son was qo

No way even for 9-5pm at that age. I would fret and wouldn't be able to relax

Nope, no way. I didn’t leave my baby overnight till she was 1. I wasn’t ready before that.