TONTS. - Inside a Mother & Baby Unit with Sabrina Kennedy

Episode Date: March 17, 2024

TONTS. On The Road.This episode is part of series of episodes that were recorded on the road as part of my tour of the UK and Ireland last year. In this first on the road episode I talk to the incredibly kind Sabrina Kennedy Charge nurse at the Bristol New Horizon Mother and Baby Unit. The unit is the smallest in the UK and is a 4-bed South West regional service providing treatments and interventions to meet the physical and mental health needs of mothers and their infants. Our 24-hour inpatient service supports, assists and supervises each mother to help develop the relationship with their infant.  This episode is so precious to me as Sabrina explains so beautifully what it's really like inside this kind of facility and the nature of the work, caring for mothers at risk who are in deep pain and in need of compassion and support. I felt so privileged after this episode to be able to sing for the women in the unit. Such a beautiful memory. To find out more about me and the work I am doing please head to https://www.clairetonti.com or https://www.instagram.com/clairetonti/And if you or someone you know needs support COPE has a brilliant directory where you can find resources in your area.http://www.cope.org.auYou can also contact the show at [e-mail]: RAW CollingsSocial Media: Maisie JG Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land on which I create, speak and write today. They were wondery people of the Kulin Nation and pay my respect to their elders past, present and emerging. Always was, always will be Aboriginal land. Hello, welcome to Tons, a podcast of in-depth interviews about emotions and the way they shape our lives. I'm your host, Claire Tonti, and I'm so glad you're here.

Each week, I speak to writers, activists, experts, thinkers, and deeply feeling humans about their stories. Now, as you know, I've written an album called Matrescence, which is about the complex transition to motherhood, something I really had no idea about until I called my album that word and then started deep diving into the effects of what it really does to a person's brain and how vast and complex it is. So just as you would know if you've listened to me talk, adolescence is seven to eight years long, so is matrescence. And there is so much that happens to us once we become parents. Part of that journey, I think, is really facing ourselves and understanding the complexities that happened to us during childhood come back with a vengeance, really, when we become parents and we see them reflected in our kids and in our experience of birth even. And so as part of my tour of the UK, I had the privilege of singing some songs

in a mothers and babies unit, a really special place in Bristol called New Horizons. It's a small four bed Southwest regional service. And when I walked in, the feeling immediately was that you were in a place that felt at home and the kitchen and the living room was kind of in the center. Then the mother's and baby's rooms were further back. The staff was so warm and so welcoming and it had been covered wall to wall with artwork from a beautiful mum who was creating craft there while she was reconnecting with her baby. I had the privilege of speaking to Sabrina Kennedy, who is the charge nurse at the unit, about her work, about her life and her experiences as working with mothers at the coalface, particularly really fragile women who

have been through a lot of trauma themselves, who then enter into motherhood with so much to deal with and often isolated from their babies or with a feeling of disconnection from their babies. So really at risk women. And I just felt so grateful to be able to be in that really fragile space and sing songs for these special humans, not only for a beautiful mum and her baby who were in the unit, but also for the incredible nursing staff that work day in, day out, caring for women at possibly some of the most fragile times in their lives. Immediately, I was also struck by this wall when I walked in, which had this huge, beautiful illustration of a tree. And across the tree were all these messages from women when they leave the unit, they write a message for other women to read as they're going. And

just before I actually introduce you to Sabrina and we get talking, I wanted to read some of those messages because they just really blew me away. So here they are. One of the quotes was after every storm there is sunshine. Don't be afraid to ask for help. Do not think of yourself as a failure walking into the MBU. Think of it as the bravest thing that you can do and your first step to recovery. And this made me cry. It's a poem. When a flashlight grows dim or quits working, you don't throw it away. You change the batteries. When a person messes up and finds themselves in a dark place, do you cast them aside? Of course not. You help them change their batteries. Some need AA, attention and affection. Some need triple A, attention,

affection and acceptance. Some need C, compassion. Some need D, direction. And if they still don't seem to shine, simply sit with them quietly and share your light. One of the quotes on the windows in that room was, life is like music, some high notes, some low notes, but always a good song. And I was so grateful to be in that space and singing. So here she is. I'd love you to meet and listen to her story, Sabrina Kennedy. Thank you so much for coming on Taunt in a hospital. I've never done this before here. It's such a beautiful space and you've walked us through this incredible unit. So we're sitting at the moment at the New Horizons MBU in Bristol. Do you want to just tell us about New Horizons first before I ask you about you?

Yeah, I mean that makes sense doesn't it? Start where we are. Yeah, so new horizons is a mother and baby unit we admit mothers who are experiencing postnatal depression birth trauma who have long-standing mental health difficulties postpartum psychosis as well which we often see here so we admit women with their babies or in the antenatal period actually but we are a small part of a whole nation of mother and baby units so there's more mother and baby units around the country we are actually the smallest in the country which I think personally makes us the best but and also very homely that's the feeling when I walked in you gave me a little tour I wish listeners could see there's this beautiful tree do you want to tell us about the tree that's sitting in your sitting

room of course yeah so the tree that was actually painted by our ward manager when she worked here as a nurse is a discharge message tree so every time a patient is discharged they write a little message for the mums that are still on the unit, the mums that are yet to come. And it's just a little hopeful message. And I think the women here just really look forward to writing that message on that tree. It is huge for them. And it's so lovely. And people just, yeah, find it really helpful to read those messages in times that are really difficult on the ward. It's just that little bit of hope and it's not come from us staff it's come from patients that have been discharged so I think it's just so valuable and wonderful yeah you can feel that

when you walk in you said something beautiful about creativity what do you what does that mean to you in this context well I think a lot of women when they have children or become a mother they lose that sense of inner child and that creativity and the things that they previously enjoyed when they were just on their own there's this like thing that you all of a sudden become an adult and therefore you can't enjoy creative things fun silly. And here at MBU, we are the opposite, in fact. You know, if you're going to be doing messy painting with your child, we encourage you to do it. It's a massive release and I just think we love creative things on this ward

and the progress we see in mums that fully go into that is amazing. I think we talked about that too just before, right, that in that healing journey the creativity is so undervalued and actually I think it's the thing that saved me definitely really yeah completely I think incredible music and having that creative outlet I mean there's lots obviously there's lots of other things you know therapy and all those other ideas you know exercise all of that but finding that outlet to rediscover myself through art really, really helped me in healing from what I'd been through with motherhood. Do you want to tell me how you started working here?

So you're a charge nurse, is that correct? That's correct. Yeah. So I'm trained as a mental health nurse. I was very young when I became a mental health nurse I went straight into it I lived in Froome in Somerset you probably won't know where that is a little town yeah it's not too far from Bristol actually about an hour from Bristol where we are now but I always knew I wanted to go into a care role I think in my family there's a lot of mental health difficulties I experience mental health difficulties myself family there's a lot of mental health difficulties I experience mental health difficulties myself so there's a lot of stigma around it and I faced a lot of that sort of growing up and seeing that and I want I knew I wanted to to go out there and do good so I trained

to be a nurse straight out of college is what we call it went to university in Bristol trained and then when I qualified I came here and I've basically just stayed here for coming up to six years and yeah so I've been a newly qualified nurse and then I was fully qualified and then gone on to be a charge nurse and what is your daily sort of routine like what are your main tasks while you're here gosh that is that is a question because it is a lot and it really every day is different here gosh the main thing I would say is advocating for these women and just walking alongside them in really difficult times that's like the main thing I would say I come in into this work for. What do you mean by advocacy? Yeah I think I talk about it a lot actually advocacy I think the women that we see here have often lost their

voice a bit and are struggling so much they can't actually get their needs met necessarily or don't know what they want because they're so distressed and so unwell they've just lost their way so it's really getting to know them and finding out what they need and sort of taking that away from them a bit so they don't have that stressor it's being like we're here we can carry this for you and support you how do women find you that is a good question basically we get referrals from community teams mental health teams a lot of the time so usually it's women that are already struggling in the community who have a key worker there and they know us we work very closely with them so it's when women begin it becomes so poorly that they can't be managed in the community or you know struggling so much they need that respite and need additional care so they come into hospital and we get referrals from them

this is a sort of funny question i guess do you want to talk us through what postnatal depression is what is a understandable reaction to a really difficult circumstance and the difference between that and then what is clinical postnatal depression does that is that making yeah that is making total sense because you could think a lot of things that happen to women postnatally could lead to depression or you know the sleeplessness all of that I guess if we think about depression it's when you stop doing things that you enjoy or you have no energy and you're in bed all the time appetite you're not eating properly or overeating you're not sleeping which I guess yeah that's a difficult one because you don't sleep we don't really focus too much on that one in postnatal depression but i think it's a fine

line really and we don't i guess i do i've been saying postnatal depression but really we don't focus on labels here as much as other mental health units or mental health community teams because it's just what we're presented with what symptoms is this person experiencing are they getting the most out of life are they feeling bonded with their baby I haven't actually spoken about attachment and bonding which is a huge part of the work we do and I probably should have said that when you said what my role is here is actually to get these mothers to attune to their baby and feel connected. Do you want to tell us more about that? So attachment and what that means.

So that's one of the biggest indicators that someone might need to come here is that they're not feeling bonded to their baby? Yeah, yeah. And it's, yeah, because the risk to that child can be quite significant. And I guess it's worth saying that the mums that come here that aren't feeling bonded with their babies, it's got to the I guess it's worth saying that the mums that come here that aren't feeling bonded with their babies it's got to the point where it's quite serious and they might be having thoughts to harm their babies which can be intrusive thoughts and they don't want them

it's distressing for them but it's very significant detachment from baby why does that happen mystery ray of things really I think the brain is so powerful and people underestimate it a lot I think especially people that don't understand mental health do not get how powerful the brain is and I think what we experience in childhood and growing up it's it's all there it's it's stored somewhere in the brain then you have your child and it's it can all come rushing back and I'm thinking of sort of people with experiences of abuse in childhood people have had miscarriages quite common for them to then when they have their child to then feel the brain sort of shuts down and wants to not attach to the baby in case they lose them that's

very common here that we see mums don't feel like they can get close to the baby in case they lose them that's very common here that we see mums don't feel like they can get close to their baby because they're like well they're just gonna die anyway so it's like a self-protection yeah yeah and the brain can do that it's so powerful and these mums are just trying to survive really the pain is too much they just shut down and it's it's huge and people don't know about it mums that come in here have never and the partners that are also there they've never heard of it and you think wow I live in this all the time and these people have no idea that the things that have happened to you are going to affect you at some point

it's so interesting isn't it I found that with parenthood that it brings up everything. It's like in order to parent, you are reparenting yourself really. Yes, that's exactly it. Yeah. Yeah. The things that you didn't have in your childhood, you know, you're now the best thing you can do for your children is to look after yourself and

come to terms with any demons that you faced in life because there will be some I think people think as well that they've had a wonderful childhood and everything but there's no such thing as a perfect parent so there's gonna there's gonna be things that have happened and then I think also there's you and your story and what you've been through. Then there's your partner and their story and what they've been through. Yes, two people. Yes, that's one of the difficult things here is that often comes up is difficulties in relationships, but not necessarily that they're, you know, wanting to get divorced or break up.

It's more that both parents are what we call dysregulating or really struggling at the same time. But it's like if you're struggling, then who's keeping baby or child in mind if you're both, you know, in crisis? So we do a lot of family work as well. And what kind of therapies do you do? How do you start to rebuild the relationship between two people, but also that attachment from mothers and babies? We do have a psychologist that works here so she offers therapy to the mums regularly and couple sessions as well

but we take quite a compassion focused therapy stance for these women um like we said about the reparenting it's it's like we're trying to nurture these mums so they can then nurture their baby and their children we take a stance of a nurturing mother almost like the the staff team are the most caring nurturing people i've ever met and i i'm biased because i love this team i'd like to think i'm part of that, yeah. That's what I felt, honestly. I feel emotional when I walk in. It feels like a big hug. Like you walk in, it's just joyful. There's colour everywhere.

There's art everywhere. There's creativity everywhere. And everyone, you just feel held in this space. And that's it. That's exactly what we want to achieve is like feeling like a warm hug. That is nice. I'm going to use that as our motto. Oh, I love that. Come in like feeling like a warm hug that is nice I'm gonna use that as our

motto come in it's a warm hug yeah that's how it feels you just automatically put your shoulders down a bit and go oh he's a safe haven well that's what we want that's amazing yeah so Bina can you tell us about intergenerational trauma and how that impacts the work you do here yes so if we're thinking about attachment so these babies obviously their mums aren't very well if their mums don't get better and aren't able to attune to baby's needs at no fault of their own ultimately this baby is going to grow up to be an adult that then will have attachment difficulties and mental health difficulties themselves potentially and the cycle will just go on because they'll then have children and you know

the same thing will happen if if they do if the parent doesn't get the support they need the help the pattern the cycle will continue and that's why we exist really so we can stop that pattern so mums can get the support they need so they can then attach their baby and it's just about being good enough you don't have to there is no such thing as a perfect parent you don't have to be amazing all the time it's just being good enough what does that mean good enough I would again we've talked a lot about sort of people's mental health and stuff but i would you know obviously it means like having giving the child shelter food when they need it

but we don't talk enough about safety and security it's about being a secure base for that child and not by you don't have to be there all the time cooing at every need that the baby has any sound any sort of cry it's being able to validate that they're feeling you know their feelings and holding that distress be just being there alongside them is okay but and I think a lot of parents can do that when they are feeling okay in themselves so it all comes back to looking after yourself if that makes sense it makes so much sense I know there's a psychologist I spoke to on the show called Carly McGoran and she talks self so it all comes back to looking after yourself if that makes sense it makes so much sense I know there's a psychologist I spoke to on the show called Carly McGoran and she talks about

how in parenting it's the repair often as well it's the going back in when you've thought you've really got it wrong and you can always fix things by going back in rather than beating yourself up and thinking well I've stuffed it up now, so that's it. Yeah, that is not the case. Yeah, yes, the repair, how you bounce back. You know, it's apologizing if you've, you know, because you can't, you know, we're human beings. We're going to make mistakes.

We're going to make a wrong mistake. It's okay, but it's owning up to that, having that self-awareness to just acknowledge it, it and yeah is everything really good enough yeah exactly right thank you do you think that and like I'm interested in this in our culture in our western culture there's some things that we're really lacking in terms of mother care and that warm hug when women do have babies in the hospital settings yeah definitely I think some stories I've heard from communities are that you know it's a whole family affair having a child you know you've got neighbors the whole community is supporting

you with this child and it sounds like that I don't yeah it just sounds incredible and how it should be but now it's sort of you have a child and you're in your house and it's just you coping and the you know I don't know what it's like in Australia but the dads get two two weeks off yeah and two weeks that's nothing it's a drop in the ocean isn't it it's like two weeks like that is mad. And then it's just off they go back to work. And I just think, what? There's madness, I think.

It should be a community, you know, looking after a child. I don't know. That's quite old fashioned, I guess. I don't think so. Do you know, I went to a mother's who make in Exodus session where a woman got up to do a poem and she was holding a baby on her hip. And she said, excuse me for swearing, fuck the village, I want the tribe. And she was talking about how it's not even that I want a village to help me raise my kid, it's that I want a tribe. And that idea that

where we come from all in Melbourne, in Australia, we're parenting on our own. The first time we might see even someone breastfeeding is when we're breastfeeding. The first time we see someone give birth is when we're giving birth. But you really start to think deeply about it. And that's weird. Like actually, how many people are giving birth all of the time and breastfeeding all of the time? And I was speaking to a woman from Ghana who did a radio interview with me in Melbourne. And she was saying, it's so weird here. I don't understand it. Like where I'm from, I didn't have any loss of identity through motherhood. I didn't.

I found it really supportive and joyful because everyone around me, my sisters, my cousins, my aunties, my mum, my, you know, my friends were all around me the whole time and they were all sharing the parenting. So I read a statistic that it's sort of like 15 to 16 adults would traditionally in a context like that be caring for a baby and we've got one yeah or two maybe for like the two weeks oh my god yeah when you put it like that it is madness it's just I completely agree that it should be a whole

family or you know it doesn't have to be family I mean we think yeah it's got to be family but it could be a community people that you trust people you love exactly yeah and it's just not like that here it's it's we're really work driven I find and actually the children babies that we are bringing up they're're the next generation. It's like the most important thing to have them build a secure attachment and thrive. Like that should be everyone's priority surely, but that's why I do this work, you know. I just think it's so valuable.

Yeah. Oh, that's why I wanted to come because I'm just, I'm so in awe of the work that you do because you're working with women and families in such fragile contexts um and it's vital you're sometimes the last place they turn to that can then help them in those times I know I I was never diagnosed with postnatal but I definitely really really struggled during those early um years and my son was quite unwell and I just thought there was something wrong with me, you know, rather than maybe it was a reaction to the community

or the, you know, isolation I felt. And I was very privileged. I had like really supportive family but I, you know, found it really hard. I want to ask you about COVID. Oh, yeah, I know. Here we go. We need a wine for this. Please don't bring it up in a hospital setting. You're bringing up COVID. Oh, yeah, I know. Here we go. We need a wine for this. Please don't bring it up in a hospital setting.

You're bringing up COVID. You're brave. I know, I know. Oh, my goodness. We'll have a warm hug after this. It'll be fine. Yeah, so how did COVID affect your work? I know.

Big deep breath for that one. Yeah, just I don't even know where to begin. It was horrendous really and we are such a small unit and we're standalone unit on the hospital site but the impact was tremendous because we were having women admitted on their own with their babies and we couldn't let visitors in we couldn't get close we use physical touch a lot you know comforting hug sit close to people yeah exactly we sit close to people when they're struggling you know that's what we do but we couldn't we had to keep two meters apart and it just it was awful it was terrible but we got through it

somehow and but I mean I think the women suffered because they came into hospital hoping it would be you know the saving grace and it wasn't it was the exact same as home if not worse because they didn't couldn't see family but the women at the time that we had were too unsafe to be home unfortunately so some of them didn't even have a choice whether they could be at home or here they have to be here did that do you covered sort of exacerbate those kind of problems for women do you think oh it made it worse yeah our referrals definitely went up people really really struggled understandably it's hard anyway isn't it like being a mum and then all of a sudden a pandemic hits and you can't go anywhere and you've got this baby crying awful yeah it's a really difficult time and just felt for all families out there.

It's kind of unbelievable. I think all of us have a lot of trauma we haven't dealt with actually from that time because I don't know about you, but in Melbourne we had one of the longest lockdowns in the world, over 100 days, and I had a baby during COVID, my daughter, who was a bit unwell as well. And so we were in and out of the hospital just after I had given birth to her. So that was, yeah, my husband wasn't allowed to come in with me.

Yeah, it's super confronting in a lot of ways that it's just the isolation. Yeah. You really can't underestimate the impact of feeling alone. I just think we're communal creatures we are we really are oh yeah connection is everything isn't it and that wiped a horrible horrible virus wiped us of connection yeah but we still found a way yeah i can imagine you would we found a way to connect yeah i found that staff on shift during COVID times we would stay after shift just to socialize oh I love that like we weren't leaving like now we when we're done with our shift we're

sort of very tired need to go home but during COVID it was sort of we'd end up staying half an hour later just chatting and yeah so we did yeah we were quite lucky that we had each other yeah what what do you do as a team to care for each other? Because I imagine the stories that you're hearing constantly would break your heart in lots of different ways. Are there things you do to look after your mental health? Yeah, we are a very close team. We try and meet up to do things together as a team,

but that can be quite difficult given shift work and we've all got busy lives outside of work as well but I think we're really good at sort of having reflective practice here so we get together as a team talk about things that are really difficult on the ward talk about dynamics that have come up because as you can imagine you know we are a I call us a dysfunctional family as a team but I don't know that that'd be frowned upon but we kind of are we spend a lot of time here then we're working with women who have their own attachment issues so we're trying to juggle all that so we we do talk have a lot of reflective time and to think about those sort of things but some team members including myself have therapy our own therapy I think that's super important to do the work we do really and I

would recommend it to staff members who I supervise you know getting your own therapy is vital really to stay well and do the work we do. Do you have a patient story that's really stuck with you? I'm sure there are a lot and obviously we don't want to use names or anything but is there a particular story that comes to mind that you could share with us? Gosh there's so many over six years the amount of women I could go with someone that's recently been discharged because it's quite a lovely story really she came in had no bond with her baby was feeling really low in mood made an attempt to end her life as well unfortunately just complete desperation felt so guilty that she didn't love her baby just so good like the guilt was huge and then the shame that followed that as well that she didn't

love her baby so she she came here and actually progressed really quick and and the one thing that she said is that we just got it we just understood we just knew and she didn't really have to do anything she just felt held I guess and we yeah we just obviously did therapy with her some difficulties came up from her childhood um how she felt maybe her parents weren't as attuned to her needs as they could have been and she felt horrific for all of this coming up it was the first time she'd ever spoken about it and she felt very guilty and she didn't want to be that kind of mother to her baby so yeah we just sort of processed some of her her difficulties from childhood and and yeah she was yeah she left earlier this week and was really tearful and

leaving but happy tears just sort of like yeah just felt it was a really good yeah one of our success stories the messages on the tree are so I I think, special. As you said, it's women writing to women in that same context, which you said, that's it, right? It's knowing you're not alone. Yeah. And sort of letting go of some of that shame. Does that help knowing even just coming here and seeing that there are other women?

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, and people often feel very stuck at times, feel like they're not making progress, that they'll never get better. And we have actual evidence that people get better, which is our discharge tree. I think I find it helpful as a staff member being able to actually say,

no, we don't keep people forever. People get better. And here's the evidence of it. Look at these messages. And these beautiful little feet. So you paint baby's feet and pop them on the wall. Yeah, yeah. Love the feet.

I love them. They're so beautiful. It's almost like a ritual, isn't it? You know, when someone's discharged. I think endings are really difficult and they're very difficult on this ward. And it's something that's just so lovely to do. And it's like an achievement, like a graduation from MBU. Yeah, do you think that ritual is something that is helpful

in general for us and that maybe we've lost some of that in our community? Yeah, I think so. Yeah, ritual routine, I don't know, something about need it really for for comfort and safety does that help women here to having a routine or having kind of more structure around them rather than being at home is that something that's helpful yeah it can be helpful some women find it too stressful having too much structure okay that's interesting yeah yeah too too rigid that because obviously babies they don't have any no they just do what they want you know and it's about having that flex being able to be flexible so it's routine but flexible routine if that's a can be a thing yeah what advice would you give

to say a person who's listening to this who's planning to become a parent or is pregnant and thinking what have I got myself in tea gosh I've never thought about this before I think just be kind to yourself I think that's like key and actually think about yourself above all and then you will be everything you need for your child I think to prioritize you and then because a baby when they come into this world all they want is their their mother their caregivers that's they don't know any different so as long as you are okay and you are looking after yourself the baby will follow suit it's that that is such a radical message which is so wild

isn't it to think about but it is because i don't know if it's the same here but in melbourne i know you suddenly give birth. You're very prioritised when you're pregnant and then you give birth and then it's all about the baby's health. Are they putting in weight? How are they feeding? Are you feeding them? Yes, true.

All the measurements and even the maternal health nurse checks that we have in our country. You go and there's sort of little questions about you but really the whole focus is the child and which or even with family members that come to visit it's like oh let's see baby and like no think about the mother you know I just it's like with breastfeeding we hear so many women you know not being able to breastfeed because they're stressed and they can't latch baby or their milk dries up and it's it's actually if mum was relaxed and feeling okay in herself

maybe there would be more success also there's no bloody pressure to breastfeed thank you so much for saying here we just say we will do whatever is best for you and baby that is all we do not give a damn about breastfeeding breast is best i think a happy mom and baby is best actually oh my god i'm getting that on a t-shirt getting your face and underneath it and it'll just say a happy mom and baby is best god it's so true i've i've really struggled to breastfeed i spent like four and a half months and the trying to do it and the advice to me was so feed every two hours then express then give formula and then do that again forever like it's basically a death sentence to me that's basically like how are you meant to survive?

Physically do that. Yeah. Yeah. It's ridiculous. Yeah. It is ridiculous. The pressure to breastfeed and then to do all of that when you're already feeling stressed because you're not able to breastfeed.

It's just. It's bonkers. And the messaging you get from everywhere in my country, Melbourne, is really like a lot of shame if it doesn't work for you. And I remember I was in – and I say this a lot. When I was in the antenatal class before I gave birth, the midwife said all women can breastfeed, some just can't hack the pain. Whoa.

I know. And I wrote it down in my notebook because I'm like quite a type A person. So I was like, right, excellent. Okay. Just like I've done marathons I can do that I know it makes me so upset I can't even oh yeah and it's awful because it's very triggering actually to even hear that phrase and you think I was thinking how many groups of new parents who've never had a baby before have heard that same message and so when it doesn't work for you, you automatically think, well, that's all I did. I just kept pushing through the pain thinking that, well, this is normal, that like my nipples are bleeding and my son's still not putting away, but it's obviously there's some problem. I haven't

figured out the latch attachment or I just haven't kept going. And I remember calling the breastfeeding hotline and they would just say, you just have to keep feeding through it. You just have to keep feeding through it. It'll work. It'll work. And going into context with, you know, very well-meaning professionals who are trying, you know, lactation consultants, but no one said to me, actually, you just might not be a person that produces that much milk and that's not your fault and here's a formula and you need to sleep yeah you know yeah that's what you need to hear in those rather than you know just keep trying it's no like how are you doing yeah what's going on for you it's okay to stop for a moment and let's just rethink you know and it's not like you can't restart breastfeeding

you can I mean it might be difficult but I think the stress of it you just need to take a step back and that's what we do here sometimes if mums are really struggling with it and it is difficult having that conversation with mums who are so dead set to breastfeed because the messaging is well that's natural yeah yeah and if you use family pressure as well is often a thing we see here to breastfeed. But I think we're the first people to ever be like, no, no, let's just take a step back and think about this for a minute because you're the priority here. It just like makes your shoulders go down, doesn't it?

Because that's the other thing. There's a beautiful book called Matrescence, the same name as my album by Lucy Jones. And I'm interviewing her on Sunday. But one of the things I learnt in that book which blew my mind, I'd never heard of this condition called hyperplasia, which is where some women just don't have enough mammary glands in their breasts and they just, no matter what they do,

they're not going to produce enough milk to keep a baby fully fed. There we go then imagine women should know this because right yeah that can't be controlled unfortunately that's just the way it is yeah and that's okay yeah and i was reflecting because i remember that maternal health nurse who said that thing about the pain she was then telling all these stories about how she used to fill fridges with milk and she'd be at a wedding and her baby home and she'd have like so much milk coming out of her boobs when someone else's baby cried. And I thought to myself, yeah, that's because you're assuming that your experience is going to be the same as everyone else's experience. And actually, we're all unique.

Like some of us love to sing. Some of us love to do yoga. Some of us love to work with women in, you know, units. And we're all unique and our bodies are unique. So of course we're all not going to produce the same amount of milk or parent in exactly the same way or birth in the same way. Please. Yeah.

It's like everyone needs a reframing. I think so. Yeah. Yeah, I really do think so. So I'm conscious we're going gonna do a bit of singing now later on today which is so exciting I'm so excited it's uh this is just amazing I love music and live music anyway so to have you come here is just oh it's just been my absolute pleasure I wanted to ask you before we finish about matrescence,

have you heard of that word before? No. Wow. I know, I know. So when I was reading about your album and that word, I was like, whoa, I didn't know there was a word for it. But obviously it's like everything we do here. Yes.

Exactly. Oh, my God. You have to read Lucy's book and also another book called Mama Rising by Amy Teller-Kabaz. And she's from Australia in Sydney and has been working in this space for like 15 years because she really, really struggled when she had her kids and was trying to look for a word to explain what her experience was. And so the idea that women actually go through and you see it they're so different after they have a baby often yeah now the research in lucy's book says that you can tell

by a brain scan if someone's had a baby whoa and i can't believe you don't know about like no your whole work yeah what a difference it would make if in training you got even this kind of information well this could be changing for our unit, yeah. Yeah, you should read the book because it's really the research that she does. It shows it can take six to seven years for a woman or a person when they've given birth to fully reintegrate and you never go back to being exactly the same. So your brain actually changes.

It sheds things it doesn't need. It becomes more complex. So that idea of a mummy brain is not true. It's just that you become more laser focused on your baby and the changes within your body in terms of like scent and smell, but also the research into socially how much we change. Like through adolescence, we're expected to go through hormonal and physical changes that throw us for a massive curveball and we kind of don't know who we are for a while and we're relearning everything about who we're going to become and we don't go back from adolescence, thank God, we make it through.

Yeah, thank God. Yeah, and so the same thing for women. That's what matrescence is and it's new for each baby too. Blimey, that is mind-blowing. Yeah, it's so fascinating to me. It was coined in the 1970s but it's so interesting that it still is such a hidden word. Do you have any idea about why that would be?

I don't know. Maybe there's just not enough research in in that area and just not spoke spoken about enough is it in an honest way exactly yeah yeah it's just not out there yeah enough yeah still so much stigma on perinatal mental health issues yeah which is horrible which i guess is why we're doing this hey exactly we're putting the word out there ah correct exactly right well what is your sort of goal going forward from here for the unit do you have plans yeah i mean we want to expand but you know have more beds which would be amazing but we run into all sorts of difficulties like space and money and yeah I think we'll just continue the services is we're always looking to

improve and and I think we want to develop our activities that we do on the ward our you know training staff up various therapies and just learning more and helping more families out there really last question and then we'll finish yeah if i was a mother that was leaving the unit what would you say to me on the way out oh my gosh i would say it would again be be kind to yourself reach out for help when you need it and just know like trust yourself as well trust your instincts and protect that there's so much pressure out there it's hard to enjoy the little things in life and I think on MBU we do such a great job at enjoying all the tiny things like having a hot chocolate or wrapping up in a blanket or watching a good tv program or film together and so yeah i think enjoy the little things and that's such great it's so funny because it seems like so simple but actually that's everything

like life is in the tiny things isn't it yeah yeah yeah completely and those little babies too yeah well thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview with me. Oh, no problem. Pleasure. And welcoming me into New Horizons. Oh, it's amazing that you're here. Oh, I love it. And also, as I probably said before, I get very gushy, but just thank you for who you are in the world

and what you're doing for these women. Oh, that's so wonderful. And these families and these babies and the wider community of staff that you're working with. It's such an incredibly special, valuable thing. So thank you. Thank you. Really appreciate that.

Thank you. Yay. You've been listening to a podcast with me, Claire Tonti, and this week with Sabrina Kennedy, charge nurse from New Horizons Mothers and Babies Unit in Bristol. For more from me, you can head to clairetonti.com. You can find out all about my upcoming shows and where I'll be around singing songs about matrescence. I will be at the Newcastle

Fringe Festival, March 22nd to 24th. I'm coming to Malwala and also to Shepparton on the 2nd and 3rd of March. I'll actually be coming back to the UK in June. So June 15th, I'll be singing at the Every Woman Festival. And then I'm hoping to do a show potentially in Abergavenny in Wales on June 16th. But more details will be coming out as I release tickets. So if you sign up to my newsletter, Tons, which is in my show notes or over at my website, claire20.com, all of my events pages and where I'll be will be updated and I'll be sending out a newsletter with all of those details and also with recommendations for things to watch, read and listen to, maybe even a recipe. So you can sign up to be fully updated about all of that over at my site or in the show notes. And if you'd like to

write in, if you'd like me to come and sing in your community, you can email hello at claretonte.com. I would so love to hear from you, even for guest recommendations. I would love that too. Anything else I have to tell you? Oh yes, thank you as always to Roar Collings for editing this week's episode and to Maisie for running our social media. And if you liked this episode, if you felt like it was helpful, I would so love you to share it with someone that you think might appreciate it too. And if you click subscribe, that really helps my episodes and my show to be found. Okay. You can listen to my album on Spotify and Apple and YouTube, and you can also find Virch and all my artwork, my lyrics booklets with artwork as well, which you can download as a digital download for $5 with beautiful and original artwork by

Annabelle Bourne over on my site too. And I think that's it for me this week. Okay. As always, big love to you. Go gently. Lots of love.