For a mother, giving birth to her first child is the most beautiful thing in the world.
But for some mothers, the experience of delivering their child is very traumatic and Clio was one of them.
Clio said that she went through a lot of pain while giving birth to her daughter as the newborn was almost choked to death during the delivery. She told Metro, ‘After a long labor, and general denial that childbirth was going to happen at all, I wasn’t managing the pain very well.’
‘It turned out that the umbilical cord was wrapped around my daughter’s neck, which meant that she was being strangled every time she tried to descend, or I tried to push. I had both ventouse and forceps with an episiotomy to get her out just in time without needing a caesarian section, but when the obstetrician removed the cord from around her neck, it snapped and she lost a lot of blood.’’
‘My baby was resusitated and I held her for 10 seconds before she was whisked away to NICU for a blood transfusion where she stayed for four days.’
She was quite disturbed with all this as she didn’t expect her delivery experience would be so unpleasant. ‘I thought I was fine… or I pretended I was fine,’ she said. I pushed down all the trauma and emotion and just got on with it, but I hated it. I cried all the time, I felt like a failure, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing, and my depression re-surfaced.’
She fought with her mental and physical strength. She had always been active and have run a marathon before going through this phase. Clio experienced painful sex that was another challenge for her marriage life.
‘My need to protect myself meant I tensed up my whole body, including my pelvic floor for months, which led to a hypertonic pelvic floor and painful sex too yet another test on top of everything else for my marriage.’
‘I remember the whole time as just being horrible and that I was floundering with no framework, advice or support to help me.’
She wanted to get to back to her old self again and the birth of her baby made so many changes in her life. She started ignoring taking care of her body and her life was all about feeding and changing nappies of the baby.
‘I was desperate to feel like myself again,’ she says. ‘But of course, I ignored my own body and the limitations of a newborn’s schedule, so when I tried to exercise it was a disaster.
‘The first class I went to, I spent the whole thing in the changing rooms feeding. I also found that unless you have a one-to-one with a PT, you’re not going to get the personalized and realistic advice to you to rehabilitate and get strong.
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‘The resources that are there are often hidden too,’ she adds. ‘I now know that it’s beneficial to get a women’s health physio check-up post-natally, but I didn’t even know that such a thing existed, right when I needed it the most.’
She realized that many classes were not paying enough attention to the health requirements of new mothers. In one of her classes, she was asked to do star jumps and run around a park which was impossible as she had weakness in her pelvic floor.
‘There are a lot of new resources and movements that are coming up now (Make Birth Better, and Pandas for example), but we can definitely do better to embed these more systematically,’ Clio explained.
‘It’s only recently that the NHS is finally rolling out the six-week postnatal check for moms. Even if you don’t have a traumatic birth, you can suffer from pelvic floor issues, incontinence, intimacy issues and more.’
‘Where is the advice for those moms (and dads)? Just because a little wetting yourself is common post-birth, doesn’t mean it’s normal – you can and should get help. For those moms struggling mentally, don’t you deserve to be at your best? ‘You’re amazing, you produced a child – you deserve to feel good about that. And what sort of example are we setting for, or learned behavior are we passing on to, our kids if we don’t look after ourselves?’
To help other mothers, Clio has started her own business ‘&Breathe Postnatal’ which is designed specifically for postnatal families, young families and the menopause. It concentrates on the self-care for parents, proper rehabilitation and strengthening fitness for moms.
‘I was so alone, struggled a lot, and was pushed from pillar to post for the help I did try to get via the only route I knew – my GP,’ says Clio. I wanted to retreat: to go away with my baby and my husband, feel better and stronger, have time for ourselves and have no pressure to do anything. So I started &Breathe.
‘It took my a long time to come to terms with, and be happy in, my own body,’ she added . ‘Remembering that peace and finding it again after I had my baby were so important to my own wellbeing.’
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