The Netmums Podcast - S16 Ep2: Dr Punam Krishan on maternal mental health and speaking up for mums

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

This episode of The Netmums Podcast features the insightful Dr. Punam Krishan, a busy GP, mum of two, and a familiar face on BBC Morning Live. As we mark Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week, Dr. Punam shares her personal journey through motherhood, touching on sensitive themes such as birth trauma, maternal mental health, and the challenges faced by new parents. The conversation covers: - The Reality of Maternal Mental Health: Dr. Punam opens up about her own experiences with postnatal depression following a traumatic birth, highlighting the importance of recognising and addressing mental health issues. - The Struggles of a Medic Mum:  Discussing the unique challenges faced by parents in the medical profession, Dr. Punam reflects on how her medical knowledge can sometimes lead to increased anxiety regarding her children's health. - Understanding Baby Blues vs. Postnatal Depression:  Dr. Punam explains the key differences between the common baby blues and more severe postnatal depression, offering valuable insights for new parents. - The Importance of Seeking Help:  The discussion emphasises the need for parents to advocate for their own mental health, encouraging listeners to reach out for support when needed. - Navigating the Early Days of Motherhood:  Dr. Punam shares practical self-care tips for new mums, emphasising the necessity of compassion and understanding towards oneself during the challenging fourth trimester. - Breaking the Stigma:  The conversation addresses the stigma surrounding maternal mental health, particularly within certain communities, and the importance of open dialogue to foster understanding and support. Join us for this heartfelt and enlightening episode that aims to empower parents to prioritise their mental health and seek the support they deserve. Stay connected with Netmums for more parenting tips, community support, engaging content: Website: netmums.com / Instagram: @netmums  Proudly produced by Decibelle Creative / @decibelle_creative

This episode comes with a content warning. The conversation covers some sensitive themes, including birth trauma, maternal mental health, and infant health issues. You're listening to the Netmums podcast with me, Wendy Gollage. And me, Alison Perry. Coming up on this week's show.

You know, I'm just normal, I'm just an ordinary human, and it doesn't matter who you are. You could be a medic, you could have all the resources around you, but you know, these things cannot be predicted and when you go through something like that, it really transforms the way that you view health. But before all of that... Hello, hello, welcome to a new episode of the Netmums podcast. Allison, how goes it? Oh, it goes alright today actually, Wendy. I'll tell you what I've been thinking about.

Tell me what you think about this. I've been thinking about the fact that if my kids have any kind of dental appointment that needs to be made or optician or anything that needs to be sorted, I'm on it. I'm so efficient. And this week I realized that for about two months I've been telling myself, I must make an optician appointment because I've got for about two months I've been telling myself I

must make an optician appointment because I've got that thing where when I start reading like a packet or something and it's close to me I have to pull it I have to pull that away and I'm like oh I think I might need reading glasses or something which makes me feel really old and why have I not just been an appointment? Do you do this? Is it just me? You're gonna laugh because I'm exactly the same. This is how old I am too, that I have to do this. So instead of taking the time for myself to book an optician's appointment,

do you know what I did? What? I bought three pairs of reading glasses on Amazon for 9.99 in three different strengths and basically they're vaguely okay. And I can now read the packets. So that's how I solved that problem. Oh my goodness, I think that our guest today is probably going to be a little bit horrified by what you just said.

Yeah, probably. Let's find out. Because we are joined today by GP, mum of two and regular on BBC Morning Live, Dr Poonam Krishan. Dr Poonam is also the author of two children's books with a third, the superhero's first aid manual on the way later this year and of course we all watched her compete and look amazing and incredible on last year's Strictly Come Dancing. Now as it is Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week we thought who better to have on than an NHS GP who has worked as an ambassador for PANDAs, the Perinatal Mental Health Charity. Dr. Poonam, a warm welcome to the Netmamas podcast. And are you

going to tell Wendy off? Well, firstly, thank you so much for having me. And actually, doctor aside, I'm a mum and I am so guilty of doing the same. It's that terrible. I know, I know, trying to carve out time as mums is just so hard, but I would say, I do think that you need to maybe just book that appointment, Wendy. Okay, and two of us reading glasses. I think in the long run, that might not be great for you.

But no, it's hard. So then what I was doing before, which was borrowing my friends, they were the communal reading glasses. At least I have my own pair of 91099 reading glasses now. It's an improvement. It is. Well done, well done. Baby steps. So you're a mum of two, you're a busy GP, you do lots of TV work. Are you super organized with family life? Does it run like clockwork or is it chaos?

Oh god it's chaos. It's absolute chaos. Oh that makes me feel so much better. I feel like it's terrible and the first I've already gone, yeah me too and it's chaos. Shattering the illusion. I think I'm okay. You can stay. Yeah. It's hard. I think it's hard trying to make it all work. I try my best to be as organized as possible. You know, with all the intentions are there. We do do the Sunday meal planning. We do do the Sunday, we have like what we call a family meeting, where we look at what's coming up the week ahead,

my husband, the two kids. And you just kind of get a sense of, right, okay, Monday, we're doing this, Tuesday, we're doing this, who's picking up, who's dropping off. But of course, nine times out of 10, Monday morning comes and it's just chaos. And you just take one sip at a time and somehow you get through to Friday night and you just need a wee glass of wine. Can I say that? That sounds very familiar, very familiar. You're the doctor, if you're saying it,

we're taking this as law. That's funny. Just a wee one, just a wee one. Prescribed, yeah, a little one on a Friday night. Now you said before that growing up in Glasgow you were raised by your Indian parents on a diet of curry and iron brew. Are you repeating that with your kids or is it more like quinoa and kombucha? Oh gosh, I think we grew up in my dad's corner shop so I think that everything that was accessible and of course lack

of information and education back then, my parents were kind of new to the country. So they were really kind of trying to embrace the Western culture, which in Glasgow, you know, iron brew is it. And that alongside the turmeric. I mean, I don't really know. One will find out over the next 10, 15 years how my health actually bodes out for that. But no, I try to give my children a really healthy, balanced diet. Of course, I'm not that kind of horrendous mum that doesn't give treats and things like that. Like I don't do that. But they do have a balanced diet. I feel like what you put into them from the very beginning is really important, allowing them to just be really like informed

about why they're having to eat good food is key. And actually, I've got an 11-year-old that does just pack his snack box and he likes to take in things like mini cucumbers and carrots and things. And I think, well done you. So far so good. Who knows what will happen over the next few years. But I did try giving them the taste of iron brew. They absolutely hated it. I can tell. No, but if you're Scottish, it's the law, you've got to look at your brew. It's just so horrendously bad for you, but it does taste good.

So do you think that having worked as a GP made you more anxious being a mum or less, especially in those early days? Because I know that for me, knowledge can be power, but when it comes to parenting, I sometimes think that too much knowledge can be paranoia rather than power, and helicopter parent rather than laid back. Yeah. How did it work for you?

It's really interesting, because I'm also married to a doctor, and we're both very, very different in our approaches. Now you can give me anybody else's sick child and in a very calm controlled way like I love kids, I do lots of children's health and you know I can really manage the kids. Give me my own kids and it's even a slight fever and I'm zero to hundreds. I literally think worst-case scenario I could testify I cannot be objective with my own. Whereas my husband who has a background in orthopaedics really they would need to have like a leg

physically hanging off the body for him to take it. So I don't know how much of it is like the medic parents whether this is a mum dad thing I certainly know that I get really anxious if any of my loved ones get ill or I get very, that kind of health anxiety is really real and I can't relax into it. So I don't know if that answers your question. Well, you know the worst case scenario more so, like we all go to worst case scenario anyway, but you know them a bit more in depth than we do. So I can get that it would be really hard if there's a fever and you're like, oh my God, it's this.

Yeah. Yeah. And my best friend actually is brilliant at having like medic pals because she's a pediatric intensive care consultant. But again, she's useless in these situations because she only sees like intensive care babies that need ventilated. So she might, oh, I don't actually know what that rash is. I'm like, I just feel a little bit worried in case it's going to turn into meningitic. She's like, calm down, calm down. It's not. But it is hard when it's your own. You're just totally emotional. You're right. It's all subjective. And you love them so hard that you just want them to be okay. So yeah, Yeah, that's so true. Now we mentioned already that it's Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week and it is such an important thing to talk about. You know, having a baby can be one of the most magical experiences ever, but it can also throw up so many mental health

wobbles, can't it? Yes, it absolutely can. And I see that regularly as a GP, but I've shared previously, widely before, I've gone through it as a patient myself and it can just strike you when you least expect it. You could have had a completely normal pregnancy, the birth could have been fine and then suddenly out of nowhere, it's such a biological thing that you can't control who or what is affected by mental health issues. Like with me as a patient going through it first hand was really eye opening because I did know everything that could potentially happen. I knew about the signs, I knew about the symptoms, my family also knew what to

look out for but it's quite insidious and I have suffered from very severe postnatal depression and it took a long time for me also to reach out and get the help and support and that was a multitude of reasons, one being I think just from a South Asian community, mental health isn't something that we speak about a lot, maternal mental health is something that's even less spoken about and awareness is poor. As a medic there was a sense of fear and embarrassment and shame going to ask a fellow colleague for support and was I now a failed mother? I think that that's why, following on from my experience, this has become the most important

part of what I do in medicine. I just want every mum that ever comes in to see me, to feel that she's truly seen and heard and that even if it is some worries that she's having, that she's got a safe space to just express them because it all builds up. You're in charge suddenly of a brand new life. You're responsible for raising good people and all this pressure and society tells you that you're supposed to be this perfect mother that doesn't exist. It's a lot and of course there's a spectrum but it's important that we constantly talk about maternal mental health and we raise much awareness and we make sure that every mother out there and father and parents

in general that they know that they are not alone in their struggles if they're feeling it. Yeah and you've said that you think that a lot of your post-natal depression happened because of the traumatic birth that you had when you had your son. Can you tell us a little bit about what happened with that experience? Yeah so with my eldest I had a very traumatic birth in that we, I mean it was a very normal healthy pregnancy but then just as the labour progressed, things just went one after the other, things just went wrong and wrong and I ended up having a huge bleed that they couldn't contain and before I knew it, I was on a ventilator in intensive care with multi-organ failure

and sepsis and it was really touch and go, my family were told I wouldn't make it. I'm so grateful, I think everything that I do today, I never take a day for granted because it was hands down the scariest moment of my life and so unexpected for me, my husband. I think the healing took so long, the physical complications were real, but on top of that it was the mental and emotional complications that were the ones that weren't visible to everybody. And I think that healing can take so long and it takes so many shapes and I required a lot of therapy, I required to go on to antidepressants to help me through those first two years. And yeah, when I felt

pregnant with my daughter, I didn't think that I could actually go through with it. And a lot of women that have gone through traumatic birth experiences, firstly, it's something that's not really spoken about a lot, so that in itself is quite isolating. But a lot of women that have had a very traumatic birth usually tend to struggle with things like physical examinations, attending gynaecological examinations, but also falling pregnant is a real fear. Of will this happen again? And with me, I was just like, well, this time around, I'll definitely die. Like, I can't go through with this. So I required a huge amount of birth trauma psychology, which a lot of people don't know is available. It's available on the NHS. And I couldn't have done that pregnancy without that support and hand holding. And I was on the high risk pathway. Of course,

she I don't seem to birth very well. And that this she was born two weeks before the first lockdown. And I was like, are you kidding? My husband, we didn't know if he could be at the birth and we had to socially distance. But then I went on to have the most magical birth experience. I could never have imagined that for myself and it was a planned section but I think that I felt as a total example that actually you could have very wildly different births and very different experiences. Her birth was actually such a healing moment for me to actually come to terms with the fact that it wasn't me that was broken, it wasn't my baby that

was broken, we went and failed. It was just one of those things that happen sometimes. But yeah, she came and she changed my life in ways I couldn't imagine and yeah, here we are But am I right in thinking that that's a pretty Shocking experience to have had then you also had an experience where you had a near-death experience with your baby as well Yeah, yes. Yeah, is it any like first of all, can you tell us a little bit about what happened? But is it any wonder that you struggled afterwards? Yeah. And I think that, you know, I often, it never leaves you, no matter how far you move from that period of time. My little boy, he was only about five, six weeks at the time, and he was struggling with silent reflux. And bearing in mind, he was,

he was fine at birth, but we'd gone through so much as a family and I did keep on saying like I think that gut instinct that mothers have, it is a real phenomenon and I just knew something wasn't right with him. I wasn't very well so I kept getting a bit disregarded by the medics around me of you're just worrying, you're not well, you're not well, you're just anxious. And yes, all of that was true, but my little boy wasn't right. He wasn't feeding well and he did have a silent reflux. And actually what ended up happening was he ended up choking and had a respiratory arrest at home. And that's where his diagnosis

actually came about. And that really contributed, I think, as well to the postnatal depression that subsequently happened because he wasn't well, everything about you wants to take care of your baby, but you also need to take care of yourself and that's really hard to do. And it was, it was a really, really hard time and I don't know why I always choke up when I talk about it. It's not surprising. Because I think that there's just lots of blanks that still exist around that time. But I'm just normal, I'm just an ordinary human and it doesn't matter who you are.

You could be a medic, you could have all the resources around you, but these things cannot be predicted. When you go through something like like that it really transforms the way that you view health and your own well-being and the well-being of your family and I think for the first time that was me and on the other side of the consultation table really truly as a patient experiencing what it feels like to feel vulnerable. Yeah, you already said that you as a health professional know the signs for suffering mental health and post-natal depression, but were you able to recognise those signs within yourself? Was it really clear to you what was going on in those weeks and those months?

Or did it take for someone else to point that out to you? Yeah, no, I didn't recognise that within myself. I just knew I wasn't the same, but I wasn't the same in every way, physically, mentally, emotionally. I was just struggling and I was struggling to share that with others because you just want to be normal. You want to fit in with what all the normal mums are looking like that were also in your, you know, antenatal classes and it was my family, it was the health visitor, everybody else that was seeing changes in me that weren't settling. Like I wasn't getting better as the weeks were going on. I was quite withdrawn, I was quiet, I was very tearful, I didn't want to go out. I

was so anxious about being left alone with my baby. And if somebody was to leave and I was on my own, it would cause hysteria at times, you know. And that in itself made me feel like a failure. So I was just stuck in this cycle. And it was my family and my health physician that were like, you need to go and see your doctor. You need to see someone.

And I think it just got to a point where it was so dark, at the darkest point, like I knew that if I didn't get help, like something bad was gonna happen. So for anyone listening, just, who might be feeling like they're not sure what's going on, can you just describe to us the key differences between baby blues and postnatal depression? So that if anyone's listening who might be a bit worried they understand the key differences.

Of course. So once you're going through childbirth and the few days, weeks after, you know there's just so much physiological changes that have happened to you. Your body's transformed, the hormones are fluctuating. It is very normal to feel the mood swings, it's very normal to feel fine and happy one minute and absolutely bawling your eyes out the next minute. This is all very much within the realms of normal. It is when those symptoms start to persist longer than just a couple of weeks or you find that you're actually more low than you are happy and your mood is consistently low your energy levels are low that you just aren't looking forward to anything that

you're struggling to bond with your baby and maybe you're having negative thoughts about yourself your baby you're struggling to sleep you're not eating properly maybe you're neglecting yourself, you're not eating properly, maybe you're neglecting yourself. I mean part of that is normal in those early days, you want to take care of your baby, you just live in your pajamas, that's normal. But if basic hygiene is missing and you're really not taking care of yourself, you're not eating properly. All of these are symptoms that suggest that you need a bit more support and you need a bit more help. And of course if things get much darker, if you are having negative thoughts about your

own life that you can't see a future, you're thinking about harm in yourself or even negative thoughts about your baby, these are serious and you need to speak to somebody about them urgently and there is a lot of support out there but that support doesn't come until you ask for it. And that's where I let myself down. If I ever went through that again the only thing that I look back and think actually I wish I'd asked sooner because if I had I wouldn't have struggled for as long as I did. Yeah so the theme of Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week this year is Your Voice, Your Strength which ties in exactly with what you've just said. I mean, so often new mums are so scared to flag mental health issues.

I know personally, when my eldest was 18 months old, I realized that I'd been suffering from postnatal depression. But even then, I was too scared to see my GP because genuinely, the thought of my GP saying, no, it's not PND, you're just a really terrible mum, was too much for me to bear. So what advice do you have for someone who is listening to what you're saying and the alarm bells are ringing and they're thinking, oh, this sounds like maybe it's me,

but they're feeling a bit too scared to go speak to their GP. What advice would you have for them? I would say I get it. I get why you would be feeling scared, but there's nothing to be scared of because you are your biggest advocate. You wouldn't hesitate to reach out or come back full circle. You wouldn't hesitate to seek help for your child.

And if there was anything wrong with your child or another loved one, you'd be the first to be their spokesperson. But do that for yourself because when you are truly taking care of yourself and you've got the help and support that you need you can be the person you want to be to everybody else that depends on you. You know never has anyone come into my practice where I have you know not listened to them and I get that sometimes you might not form a rapport with a particular doctor or a nurse I mean that happens from time to time you think actually they didn't listen to me. You know remember practice have got lots of doctors in them so if one doesn't

gel with you and you feel you weren't listened to, make an appointment and go back and speak to somebody else because you deserve that care, you deserve to be heard and you deserve the support that comes from that. I think that sometimes we worry because society has made us over time think that we should just be getting up and getting on with it and it isn't like if somebody's had major surgery, they'd have a period of time where they need to actually rest and heal. You don't get that after you've gone and had like a life changing procedure time and you've given birth and you just have to expect to get on with it. But you know, I think that asking for help along the way is not a weakness.

It is absolutely your strength and yeah, like please just do not struggle in silence. I remember a health visitor saying to me, there's no other circumstance in the world where you'd lose this much blood and then be told to go home and look after a brand new human. You'd be having a blood transfusion in a hospital with someone picking you toast. But no, six hours later, off you pop, here's a new person.

So don't kill it, bye bye. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And everything is against us. Everything is against us at that point. The one thing that we need is, in order to heal, we need good nutrition, we need good sleep, we need restorative sleep in order to heal all that inflammation.

That chills. Where do we get that? We don't get any of that. And some people don't even have additional support of family members. They may be single mums, you know? And I think that it's crazy that we think that it's normal to be able to do it all on your own. It's just not. And I think particularly when you're struggling, you wouldn't hesitate twice to go in for a sore tummy or a sore arm. But

I think when the mind is aching, for some reason we shy away and we feel embarrassed and I just think that that's one of the most important parts of our body because when our mind's in check, everything else follows on from that. Why do you think that stigma around maternal mental health persists? And I don't know, do you think there's a way we can challenge it? Yeah, it's so deep rooted, isn't it? And it spans for so long and that women have just been expected to just get on with it. And then what happens is if you do complain, you're seen to be like the moaner, the person that can't cope, or she's just not good enough. And then we feed into that because of everything that we've been taught, you know, by society for so long.

And particularly in communities, you know, I come from a South Asian background, in communities, ethnic minority backgrounds, it's even worse because mental health in itself is stigmatized. Now that down into maternal mental health, and they just think, well, you're just crazy. And that's just, it doesn't help anybody in those situations. And I think that we are failing women all the time by continuing to just ignore them or label them as just being mad or shaming them for just not being able to cope. And I think that by having these conversations, by raising their awareness by more and more women that have been there saying, well me too, this happened to me and you know, actually well look at

me now, I came through it, there is another side to that rainbow. It really helps, like it helped me when I heard other women that had gone through it and had actually come out the other side. And when you're in the darkest of places, you can't see that. You can only see yourself as being a failure and what's wrong with me and I'm not good enough. And that just ruminates and ruminates and can make the problem so much worse. So I think that the tide is changing, thankfully. I think that we have got a real change that is happening. More and more women are talking about it, maternal mental health. We're recognizing it within medicine and I think medics really need to take charge as well.

I don't think that all clinicians are on board with really taking the time to listen to mothers. But things like mandatory six-week checks where actually a focus on mental health, it needs to be mandatory. Unfortunately, it's not happening across the country in the healthcare system yet. But one day, I'm hopeful that it will. But I think we carry on fighting the fight and speaking up for mums. And in terms of self-care in that period, you know, you've said that it's hard to look after ourselves in the fourth trimester. What self-care practices do you recommend for new mums?

I think it's ultimately as cliched as it might sound, it's actually to just be compassionate towards yourself. We love our babies with everything and we try and deliver everything to them, but we don't do that for ourselves. And yes, it's hard. You're not going to get those lovely eight, nine hours of sleep unless somebody else is looking after your child literally. But finding those pockets of time throughout the day just to feed yourself as you're feeding your child and napping when your child is napping and seeking out moments that connect you with your sense of identity. I mean, I remember I just not long had my little girl and it was three weeks in, I was still leaking

boobs and you're in your pajamas and you stink and you just look like hell and I just popped on a bright red lipstick and put on a pair of heels and I just for 10 minutes stoted around the house going I'm the boss. It's crazy but whatever works for you, you need to find your little pockets. If you have older kids and a newborn at the time and it's hard, be forgiving to yourself. Put on a bit of screen time for them and lie down on the sofa. All those little things. Ask others to cook for you. Sometimes people go, well, what can I bring you as a present? Please, can you just bring me some meals for the next few days or do the shop for me? Ask,

because if you don't then you're not going to get it and the only person that you're actually letting down is you. So here at Netmums we have our own new support hub for new mums which includes a perinatal mental health symptom checker which we are hoping to spread far and wide. How would you like to see partners, families, communities better supporting new mums' mental health? I think it's by actually just appreciating that they need to be there, especially in those first few weeks and months.

And when you're asking the how are you, it's really being there to listen, have the intention to really listen and take on board what mum is saying. I think access to resources is really important and I think that needs to be widely accessible to everyone in every form of language. But yeah, I think that the first and most important thing is just actually everyone being aware that there's a big transitional shift going on for this woman and I'm going to really truly be there for her and support in whichever way she needs. So it's twofold. I think as mums we need to really say, help, this is what I need, check, check, check. But those around her to be like, okay.

And be specific. this is what I need, check, check, check, but those around her to be like, okay, I can help you with this. And be specific. Yeah, be specific. Yeah, absolutely. I think because I need a lasagna and some new luos, please. Yes, yes, yes, exactly. The pickled honey crisps, what I needed at that time. I was like, I just want a multi pack of pickled honey crisps. Now your son is at that tween stage now when hormones can start kicking around. What sort of conversations are you having with him about mental health? Because it's a really kind

of crucial period for boys, isn't it? That kind of those teen years. Yeah, I think because of the way me and my son started off our journey together, mental health has been something we've always spoken about and it's been really important to me that I've spoken about feelings and thoughts and how we feel at the end of the day and how we feel at the beginning of the day. It's always been part of our everyday life. So actually, as a result of that, he's a very intuitive boy and he's really good at talking about his feelings. At the end of the day, he'll say, this is how I felt today, this happened, I felt a bit overwhelmed, I was a bit sad about this. But we also, as parents,

do that. We're very open about how we're feeling. And I think that's what was missing when I was little. And I recognize that as an adult is that my parents never spoke about their mental health. It just wasn't a thing. Looking back as a kid, I could see at times my parents were struggling and they had their challenges. But through the lens of a child, you don't really know what that really means. So we've always spoken about it with my little girl, she's only five, we're so open about feelings. And yeah, we're just really open. It's interesting because he did come in from school just a couple of months ago. And he was like, I'm pubertizing mummy. I'm pubertizing. Miss Stevenson said that I'm going to go through all these

emotions. Like one minute I might be like really happy and then I'll be like really angry. I mean, it's pubertizing. And I was like, okay, darling, well, mommy is perimenopausal. And that means, I can just see my husband going, I'm going to the pub. It's just really interesting of how like, you know, we are entering this new year with him, but at the same time I'm also going through, it's coming, I'm 41, it's coming for me. So yeah, we'll see how this evolves over the next few years as we go through teens and menopause together.

Well, Alison and I are both knee deep in pubitizing and per perimenopause. So we end up going, oh you don't ask, best not to ask. We've got daughters as well. It seems quite a cruel thing for nature to do to have those two life stages happen roughly at the same time, it's so unfair. You could read all the books in the world it just doesn't prepare you because it's so unique to you, right? And you are just there winging it, making it up as you go along, hoping that you're going to be all right on the other side of it. So what are your main kind of like, oh, panic about the teenagers? What's the thing that you're most worried about?

I'm not sure if I'm worried. I think that's a really good question. I think I'm worried about change. I've known my little baby boy in the way that he is, you know, for 11 years. And it's been pretty consistent. And I hear from like other mums. And I remember going back as a teenager from hell for my mum. And I'm just, I'm a teenager from hell for my mum.

And I'm just, I'm a bit angsty about the change. Is he gonna change? He might not change. And I think I'm just like, you've gotta sometimes, I'm just surrendering to it, but also just be like, please don't change too much because you're so gorgeous as you are. And every now and then we're seeing little bits, you know, there's a little bit of talking back happening,

a little bit of attitude. I find myself, the phrase every day that's driving my husband crazy is I go, less attitude, more gratitude. Yeah, I think it's changed, but I'm also changing. And I think that that it's just it's the uncertainty. I don't like uncertainty. And my goodness, mummying is full of uncertainties. You'd think we'd be used to it by now. I'm not sure. It sure is.

The phrase in this house at the moment, which I'm saying to myself every day is, you're the grownup. I just have to keep remembering that I am the grownup. So every time I want to scream, you're the grownup. So try that one as well. You know what, that's really interesting. That's a lot of pressure.

That's really interesting Wendy because I have in the past found myself arguing with my teenager as if I am a teenage girl and I really have to draw myself back. So I need to steal that mantra and tell myself, you're the grown up, chill. Yeah, well see I find I'm doing that with my five year old. I feel like me and her really kind of collide. So I don't know if it's that whole boy mum, girl mum thing. Maybe. But yeah, she has five going on 15. And I think because there's such a big age gap between my two, she has aged a lot faster than what I remember him at five was still

talking about Paw Patrol, where she wants head massages and all sorts. So I'm just a bit like, ahh. My six year olds are listening to Billie Eilish and Charli XCX and I'm like, yeah, my eldest was still listening to, I don't know what- It was still Peppa Pig. Maybe Charli. They do age so much faster when they're, you know, second, third born. Now Dr Poonam, we loved watching you twirling and dancing on Strictly Come Dancing last

year. Are you harbouring any desires to appear on any other reality shows? Oh gosh. I'm a celeb. I'm a celeb. I couldn't do that. I couldn't do that. I couldn't.

I couldn't. If I'm going test to pull, not for you. Genuinely, if a spider's in the house, I have to do that. I couldn't do that. I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't. Genuinely, if a spider's in the house, I have to run out. I run out of the house. No, do not go home a celeb then. So I couldn't. I literally would have. I'd be that person that had a cardiac arrest in the middle of the jungle. So I mean, I'd be lovely, but I just can't. I can't even watch it because it makes my tummy churn and then I'm crawling for hours afterwards. No. So yeah, you won't be seeing me on that program for sure. But you know, I'm open. I think the one thing Strictly really did because I really was out of my comfort zone

in that one. It was a dream come true. My most favourite show on earth. But it has now made me just say yes more. I'm in the whole, well what's the worst that could happen? Because the worst that could have happened for me was like falling on my arse, unstrictly, and touching with that didn't happen. So I'm like, well what's the worst that could happen? Do it, feel the fear, do it anyway, been there, done that, got the t-shirt, ticked it off. They let me keep my Bollywood costume. Because I was like, I'd really love to show it to my grandchildren one day and they were so sweet they let me keep that and so I've

got it in the archive in future to be like mummy did that but no idea what's next we're just going with the flow. So finally as a GP what's the one thing that you wish you could tell all parents? No pressure. Gosh, if it's feeling hard and challenging, it's because it is hard and challenging. So go easy on yourself and if you are struggling and having down days, it's also normal, but you have always got your GP and others there to help support you along the way. Reach out.

That's brilliant advice. I love that. Anyone would think she'd do this for a living, wouldn't they? Oh, I know. She's an absolute professional. Dr. Poonam, thank you so much for chatting to us, State Net Mums. It's been wonderful to talk to you. Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a gorgeous chat. Don't forget you can get in touch with us on all social channels, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, just type in Netmums and you'll find us. And if you liked what you've heard today, we'd love for you to give us a five star rating. Press the follow button and share the podcast on

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