MOTHERING AND CARING.

Healing After Birth.

Birth is one of the most intimate experiences in a persons life. It is intimate and raw.

The time afterbirth can feel a sensitive time to navigate, with numerous physiological and psychological changes occuring within the inner landscape of a women and person as they transition from birth into nuturing and caring for her baby, and themselves.

This period can feel dually confronting and exhilirating in welcoming and adjusting to new life, whilst a person’s body moves through and towards the becoming of caregiving. An overlapping experience, where one can feel surprised and shocked, confused and delighted, a keiledscope of conflicting emotions, and physical sensations, all of which are true.

The physical sequele of birth can at times take ones breath away with unanticipated levels of pain in the intimate tissues and organs, the vagina, vulva and anus, and the abdomen depending on the means of birth. Owing to swelling of the tissues from the forces of birth, changes can occur to the ability to control weeing and pooing, breast tissues can feel uncomfortable as breast milk and feeding is being established. These feelings intertwined with an incomparable warmth that new life brings.

Healing after birth, is more than about recovery. The etymology of the word 'recovery' is to return or come back, yet mothering can caregiving irrefutably moves us forward. Healing being the capacity to release the old and welcome the new. A cycle of renouncement and renewal, not unlike birth itself.

What one requires to foster healing is individual and nuanced and asks of us to define the answer for ourselves- what is it that healing will hold or mean for you?

For those feeling lost, a complementary beginners guide to self care is available here it considers the time, energy and attention constraints that a new carer has and the emotional, the mental, the physical.

25.2.2025.

Kim Verdebo.