When Ellen Baldwin was expecting her first child she imagined rocking it to sleep after busy days, the scent of milk and baby bubble bath enveloping them both. The reality for the Brighton-based mother was a shock. She was in a constant state of high alert, her heart wouldn’t stop racing and she felt panicky. Ellen, 46, found herself checking her baby Eva endlessly and she struggled to sleep. ‘I found my whole world had been turned upside down,’ she admits. Ellen was suffering from postnatal anxiety.
A trained counsellor herself, she knew she needed to seek the help of a therapist. ‘She really saved me in those early days,’ Ellen, who lives in Brighton, says.
The experience led Ellen to found a charity in 2013 to help women navigate the challenges of becoming a mother. Mother Nurture, run under the umbrella of Release Counselling and Therapy for Women, has now helped around 1000 new mothers, organising 10-week courses in community buildings across Sussex, as well as 1:1 counselling over Zoom or in person in Hove.
Creating Mother Nurture
Focusing on emotional wellbeing rather than parenting advice, the groups create a supportive space where women can come together to be heard and to have their varied, and often adverse, experiences of motherhood validated. Everyone – and their baby – is welcome, whatever their means. To date, groups in Brighton, Hove, Peacehaven, Worthing, Haywards Heath and Sompting have all benefited from the pay-what-you-can courses which always include one free place.
Some courses are more specialised. Mothers of premature babies, mothers with a history of sexual trauma, and mothers from the LGBTQ+ community, for example, have the option to join a group that sees motherhood through a like-minded lens. ‘If you help mums at the start of their transition to motherhood, everybody gains,’ Ellen says.
At least one in five mothers struggles with their mental health at some point during pregnancy, child birth or in their baby’s first year, Ellen explains. Intrusive thoughts and strong feelings of sadness, anger, and fear can affect our mental health.
‘I see a lot of enjoyment in their babies,’ says Ellen, now a mother of three. But ‘matrescence’, the process of becoming a mother, she says, is also a huge identity change that can bring unexpected challenges. ‘We change physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually,’ she explains.
‘There’s a real myth or misconception about being the perfect mother that puts so much negative pressure on mums. Nobody really talks about how hard the early periods are and therefore it comes as such a shock to mums and they think, it must only be me.’ At least one in five mothers struggles with their mental health at some point during pregnancy, child birth or in their baby’s first year, Ellen explains. Intrusive thoughts and strong feelings of sadness, anger, and fear can affect our mental health. ‘All of these emotions are understandable and normal,’ she says, but can be hard to manage alone.
Many ‘alumni’ have remained friends, some taking part in sponsored events to raise funds for Mother Nurture. ‘It’s so inspiring to see mums who, a few months ago, might have been feeling a bit wobbly in one of our groups and then they’re out there running the Brighton 10k raising money for the next intake of new mums in Sussex,’ Ellen says. ‘It’s that sort of pay-it-forward idea.’
Life-Changing Moments
Holly Stone,34, a photographer from Worthing, describes the support she received from Mother Nurture as ‘life-changing’. In 2021, a traumatic labour with her now two-year-old son saw her develop post-partum depression and PTSD. Her health worker pointed her in the direction of Mother Nurture, but Holly was apprehensive.
‘At first I was really nervous,’ Holly says. ‘It takes a lot to walk into a room of strangers and say you’re struggling with your baby.’ But Holly was in what she describes as ‘a really bad space’, and the group, she says, ‘was offering me a lifeline’.
Holly soon found herself looking forward to the weekly sessions. ‘I experienced a really amazing, warm, supportive environment that encouraged me to be honest about my experience after feeling so alone in my first few months of post-partum recovery,’ she says. ‘It was the tribe I was looking for.’ The course, she says, was a place to share birth stories, to articulate grief for their old life, to discuss relationship changes and the challenges of early motherhood and to grow into this new role.
‘It was such a safe space to be able to be honest, knowing that it doesn’t mean you love your baby any less, it’s just really tough sometimes,’ she says. ‘To be able to say that … with other women that are going through the same thing was just so cathartic and so positive and it really helped the healing process.’ In time, Holly found her confidence again, her symptoms eased, and she emerged from her depression.
‘Motherhood was painted as all sunshine and rainbows, and the reality is actually very, very overwhelming,’ Holly continues. ‘It’s the hardest and most incredible thing I’ve ever done. It is magical and beautiful and all of those things. But it’s also really complicated and can be really scary and challenging, and I just remember feeling like: why did nobody tell me this?’
When Holly asked her group if they would take part in a photography project to tell their stories of becoming a mother, she was moved by how ‘incredibly open’ they were. ‘They were really willing to share it with me and get the message out to other women that it’s OK to say when you’re struggling,’ she says. The photographs were exhibited in Hove in October 2023 and Holly is currently seeking new spaces to share the women’s stories with new audiences.
Above all, she wanted to portray the complexity of motherhood. ‘You go through complete, unbelievable happiness and love and vulnerability and warmth. You have moments when you’re laughing so hard and moments when you’re crying so hard,’ she says. ‘I wanted to show how multi-layered this journey is by including these stories.’
‘Motherhood was painted as all sunshine and rainbows, and the reality is actually very, very overwhelming. It is magical and beautiful but it’s also complicated and can be really scary and challenging, and I just remember feeling like: why did nobody tell me this?’
However, when it came to posing for the portraits (three of which are featured here), there was a surprising commonality between the women. ‘Every woman that I photographed smiled for their portrait,’ Holly remembers. ‘That was completely optional, but ultimately, there was this message running through it all of hope: that we can all do this and we will get through this together.’
The mothers who’ve been helped
Jen’s story
‘From the moment I gave birth, I came undone. Due to Covid policies and an under-staffed ward, I was left to labour alone for 10 hours – no partner to hold my hand, no midwife to administer pain relief. No one came until I was ready to push. My husband was finally called and arrived 25 minutes before our son was born. I left the hospital with PTSD. As I fumbled through the early days of newborn life, my father received a cancer diagnosis and died three weeks later.
I spiralled with grief and postnatal anxiety and struggled to find the joy that should have accompanied my new life as a mum. I sought help. A weekly phone call with a counsellor named Sue became my lifeline. I never saw her face, but I will always remember her voice. At Mother Nurture, a therapy group for new mums, I found myself surrounded by women who affirmed my feelings and experiences, and who didn’t retreat from my pain. In that little room which held our bodies, our babies, our tears and our innermost thoughts, I had space to mend.’
Amara’s story
‘I have always dreamed of being a mum. We suffered a miscarriage in 2020 and so were so excited to welcome our beautiful rainbow baby. After a traumatic birth we didn’t have the fairytale start to motherhood I had hoped for, but every day got easier and I now feel I have found my happiness. My husband says: “You have always been a mum, you were just waiting for Bonnie to arrive”.’
Gunes’s story
‘So alone but with so many. So vulnerable but so strong, where there is no time and space... I’ve never felt such opposite feelings so strongly, and at the same time, in my life. I am becoming someone else as many like me did before. And I feel so much love and respect for those who have gone through this before...
‘I am still becoming, it’s not finished and probably never will be. Every day brings something new and I try to learn to navigate. Sometimes I feel proud, sometimes a failure. I think it’s part of the process. Days are slow, weeks are fast, and the parks, paddling pools and people from Mother Nurture are your best friends.’
Images and text courtesy of Holly Stone Photography as part of her ‘Grow: A Journey Into Motherhood’ series. hollystonephotography.com
