THE majority of new mothers experience profound upheaval and confusion, ‘alarming’ research suggests. More than three-quarters struggle to make the transition and experience ‘role confusion’ after giving birth, the government has been told.
More than half of new mums – 55 per cent – reported feeling a loss of identity, with 14 per cent saying they experienced a strong sense of identity loss. The majority – 78 per cent – reported ‘role confusion or uncertainty post-birth’, while 82 per cent of those women reported feeling overwhelmed and 68 per cent said their anxiety levels became heightened.
The YouGov research involving 1,050 new mothers was carried out by Mum Love, a new foundation supporting women as they shift into the motherhood role. It was presented to Number Ten last month in the hope that support systems will be put in place to prevent anxiety, postnatal depression and confusion, rather than waiting until women present with serious mental health challenges.
The problems facing new mums are already well known. According to the Royal College of Psychiatrists, one in ten mothers experience postnatal depression while data from the Institute for Fiscal Studies highlights long-term career impacts with motherhood. Yet there is still little support, more so as parental rights are being eroded. It is a confusing time to bring children into the world.
The effects of new mum feelings extend beyond normal emotional adjustment, Mum Love said, while 52 per cent of women described that their ‘career direction declined after becoming a parent’. Nearly half of the women surveyed, 48 per cent, also reported strain in their relationships with partners.
Couples therapist Wesley Little said research shows that 69 per cent of couples experience a decline in their relationship once they start a family. The Marriage Foundation, a British charity, said that 18 per cent of cohabiting couples split within three years after their child is born. That figure is around 5 per cent for married couples. However, by the age of 14, 46 per cent of children are not living with both natural parents.
Mum Love was launched by business owner Georgie Woollams, who had a difficult pregnancy and a traumatic caesarean birth at the age of 39. A stepmum, she had built a good relationship with her stepchildren, but they were not keen on acquiring a new sibling, which added an extra layer of stress.
Georgie suffered considerable health challenges post birth. Weak, with tubes attached to her body, dosed up with opioids and a pain in her arm that felt like a heart attack, when she was handed her daughter Amelie, she said: ‘I did not have the Hollywood moment of holding my baby.’
Overwhelmed and vomiting, she was unable to eat for seven days but still expected to breastfeed. She could barely stand. ‘I was exhausted from the drugs,’ she said. Amelie would choke when she took a bottle, ‘I would just cry, feeling like the worst mum. It was during covid, so I was doing all this on my own because of covid rules.’
She had high expectations of being a good parent, stepmum and company owner, but I know from my own experience that juggling work and babies often leaves you feeling you are doing neither job properly, however hard you try.
There are two main issues women deal with when they become new mums. For most, handling a baby is alien as we no longer live in multigeneration communities, rarely socialising regularly with children in our 20s and 30s. And many women feel defined by career and see becoming a mother as less important. Personally, I felt I gained an identity rather than lost one. I was super proud to be a mum and when I was referred to as my daughter’s mum in play groups or at her school, I had no sense that I was invisible, it was simply another role and an accurate description.
I was desperate to be a stay-at-home mother having been brought up by a series of childminders. But society is not set up to support women who want to look after their own children. We must sacrifice our income; we are ejected from pubs and restaurants if we have babies or children in tow, it feels as if we become second-class citizens.
There are lovely one o’clock clubs where we can meet other mums, but one left me traumatised. I have a vivid memory where a baby, around nine months old, was left to scream her lungs out in the middle of the room. I could not bear her distress so I picked her up, and she stopped. This is unusual as babies that age do not want to be handled by strangers. I spotted her childminder, but when I tried to pass her over, the baby clung to me like her life depended on it. She did not want me to let her go and her strong grip shocked me. I was told the childminder was ‘training’ her to be independent and that it was difficult for everyone. In my eyes, it was child abuse, leaving a baby to scream. I was haunted and I never went back but often wished I had tracked down her parents to explain what I’d seen. However hard, that strengthened my resolve to look after my own children.
It can be isolating as babies cannot talk. Georgie kept saying to her husband: ‘I feel lonely.’ He would reply, ‘you have a baby, how can you be lonely?’ She was invited to see friends without her baby; understandably she did not want to leave her child so could not go.
I remember friends being baffled when I did not want to leave my six-week-old baby to join a hen weekend that I dearly wanted to attend. ‘Can’t you leave her with your mum?’ ‘I’m breastfeeding.’ ‘Can’t she take a bottle?’ They had no clue that babies cannot just be passed around, even to relatives. They are programmed to attach to their caregivers, according to the British psychiatrist and psychotherapist John Bowlby. Break the attachment, he argued, and this causes distrust in relationships later in life. So, providing a consistent presence in a baby’s first three years is vital.
Georgie was prepared for none of this. Doom-scrolling one day, she said: ‘I found myself in a deep pit of confusion and despair. I typed into the search bar, “what is wrong with me?” The NHS website popped up, highlighting symptoms of postnatal depression. I quickly shut the page, terrified of the label. I wanted to be the perfect mum, the one I had envisioned during those dreamy pregnancy days.’
Then she stumbled on an article about a mum’s identity crisis. ‘It was like a lightbulb went off in my mind. I realised I wasn’t alone. The first words that hit me were, “this is perfectly normal”. I got it. I wasn’t just struggling with the physical demands of motherhood; I was grappling with a complete transformation of who I used to be. I was no longer just Georgie; I was a mum, a stepmum, wife and business owner, all rolled into one.
‘I started to talk openly to other mums at coffee mornings and they were feeling the same. This confusion is a natural part of motherhood. It was a wake-up call that I needed to embrace this change, rather than fight against it.’
