Single sex support groups in postnatal period

[houseydncf]

Does anyone know of any research relating to the need / desire for women only groups / support services in the postnatal period?

I'm talking about NHS ran groups via maternity and HV services but I'm struggling for evidence so will take anything remotely relevant.

I'm trying to get across that including dads, grandparents, siblings, the family gerbil, and whoever else is great SOMETIMES, but it's also important for women to have the opportunity for single sex groups and access to support too.

Hope I'm being clear, if not I can try to clarify further what I'm after. Many thanks!

By research do you mean academic? I think you'll struggle to find that given the times. I am under the perinatal mental health service and have been part of many mum only (biologically female only) groups and benefitted hugely from them

Yes @Battenbergcoconutice academic research.

So glad to hear you've had good support from the PMH team. Sending you my best

I don't have research but I came on here to talk about this very issue.

My local area now has support groups for "breastfeeding families". There's no mention of the word mum/mother/woman etc.

The same organisation (former surestart - now family hubs) has a "dad's group" on a certain day of the week.

It completely baffles me why one term is used but another isn't.

You could always argue that single sex groups caters better for our current cultural diversity. Many religious groups would want single sex spaces and these ridiculously all inclusive spaces could be viewed as a very white middle class phenomenon (even though obviously no one likes them)

Breastfeeding families?!
Reminds me of the time in my Sure Start breastfeeding group when a new woman turned up with her husband - no babies were fed properly that session and everyone felt really uncomfortable.

I've talked about this (at great length!) under many MN guises over the years. I struggled terribly with BF DD. She failed to put on weight so I was invited to a bf clinic for support. But there were men there. I had pnd and really needed support in many ways but getting my boobs out with men there - making 'helpful' suggestions in one case - made me so uncomfortable I never went back. DD was losing weight, I was losing my mind and she ended up being ff as I had no way to improve the situation.
Every time I have shared that on here, some women have jumped down my throat with the whole "My Jim isn't interested in your tits" or "if my husband wasn't there I'd never cope" "It's his child too, he has a right to be involved". So their partners needs trumped mine and I got put in my place.

We get round this having a lactation consultant in a separate room off our baby group. Dads are welcome to come to the toddler group, but women get slots for private support with breastfeeding. If they want their partner with them, fine. But women who need support aren’t ‘on show’ to anyone else.

@Dancerprancer19 but even then mums who are struggling with breastfeeding will opt out of the baby group, and therefore the breastfeeding support, if they worry that their baby will need feeding during the session.

At the breastfeeding group I attended you could feel the tone change whenever a dad attended. They were clearly there to be supportive to their partner, but it stopped all other conversations about things specific to new mums such as recovery from the birth

Support groups for new mums is not the place for men.

There needs to be another way of meeting the needs of dads and women who want their partner with them at all times.

Our mum group was all women, we breastfed babies, talked about births and the consequences, our post-birth bodily changes, and it was so important to have that opportunity, it was like group therapy! And it wouldn't have happened if the dads were there too.

I know there is a need, and appreciate you sharing experiences, it really highlights the issue.

However, I really need some academic research to back up what we're all thinking and saying. I can't find it, so perhaps it doesn't exist. I wish I was in a position to conduct it!

I’ve told this story before but I attended a post natal depression support group and a man was in it. He dominated the group and told a story about how he pulled his ex wife’s curtains down after an argument

When I discussed this with the group leader I got told that I was wrong and I should find a different group. I so desperately needed support and that made me feel so awful for such a long time. It made my severe PND much worse.

I don’t know that there’s been any research done OP. This 2018 systematic review was looking at postnatal groups in high income countries, but struggled massively to find research on them; while (for obvious reasons) there’s a wealth of research on them in low-income countries.

Google Scholar certainly wasn’t ponying anything else up for me, but it is late/early & I am tired, so “accio articles!” may be failing to summon them as it should 😉

Well, one thing to do would be to complain about the Dad's group. Clearly exclusionary 🙄 and, since they acknowledge only 'families' for the mothers' group, the least they can do is change the dads to 'parents'.

Not in the right spirit, I know, but I'm all in favour of highlighting the many inconsistencies in this lunacy any way possible.

If you search up the last couple of papers from Dr Karleen Gribble you'll find a bit of research into maternity and sex language and similar things.

I can only read the abstract but this paper explores how women with postnatal depression fare better in support groups specifically for women with PND rather than general groups.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jcop.21566#:~:text=For%20women%20with%20PPD%2C%20condition,condition%20away%20from%20the%20margins.

"Similar others" encourages disclosure. You could reasonably extend this to breastfeeding eg women struggling to breastfeed feel more comfortable with women in similar circumstances.

"Findings indicate that there are differences in the way social support functions between these groups; however, all participants indicated attending group support as a means of sharing with and obtaining information from similar others. For women with PPD, condition-specific support groups were reported to be most helpful. These support groups encourage disclosure, provide contact with similar others, and pulls the condition away from the

I breastfed in front of unknown men. I didn't see why their presence should embarrass me - but everyone is different and we all have this ridiculous socialization that we should not make men uncomfortable.