Expectations vs Reality of Motherhood
Interview with Ashley Winning
I chat with Ashley Winning, a Pregnancy and Birth Guide. Ashley is a wife and a mother of three girls. Motherhood has completely changed her life, and she completely loves it!
She created The Motherhood Circle to provide mums with a nurturing, safe environment to talk about their fears and struggles. With over six years of experience as a qualified Postpartum Doula, Ashley supports pregnant and newborn mothers with her online programs and mentoring.
Ashley discusses her research on newborn mothers, women’s expectations around postpartum and whether they are getting the support they need. She shares some insights and key findings of her research and the different kinds of support women actually need during the postpartum period.
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About Ashley
Ashley believes that women are born with the strength, wisdom and courage to birth and be the mothers they want to be. She works intimately with pregnant women who plan to have vaginal births after c-section/homebirth by working through fear and mindset challenges while providing emotional support so that they feel heard, seen and validated while taking steps to birth their baby their way. Ashley is a VBAC and Homebirth Mentor and Guide, Podcaster and Speaker and she birthed her third baby at home unassisted after two surgical births.
Reach out to Ashley here: https://ashleywinning.com/
We explore the following questions:
What are the expectations women have about postpartum support versus the reality they face?
Why do new mothers often feel isolated and unsupported during the postpartum period?
What types of support do new mothers expect before giving birth, and how does that change after their baby arrives?
How can mothers build a "village" of support that suits their unique needs?
What are the biggest challenges new mothers face in finding emotional and practical support?
Why is there a cultural gap in understanding the emotional needs of postpartum mothers?
What can pregnant women do to prepare for the postpartum period to ensure they receive the help they need?
How can family members and friends better support new mothers emotionally and practically?
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Transcript
Julia Jones:
Hello and welcome to the Newborn Mothers Podcast. Today I have one of my graduates, Ashley, on the show because she's done some really interesting research, really important research on the transition to motherhood. And Ashley, do you want to explain a little bit about what you do?
Ashley Winning:
Hi, Julia. Yes, I'm Ashley, and I am from the Motherhood Circle. I support newborn mothers who want to overcome isolation, overwhelm, and sleep deprivation. And I've created an online community for support and for new mothers to find non-judgmental advice and resources.
Julia Jones:
Yeah, sounds amazing. And actually you've got a little bit of local stuff and a little bit of online stuff, is that right?
Ashley Winning:
Yeah, that's right. I support mothers in a local way, so I run workshops and mother circles, and also I'll be launching an online platform soon as well as my free Facebook group online.
Julia Jones:
And whereabouts are you based?
Ashley Winning:
I'm based on North Gold Coast in Australia.
Julia Jones:
And the research you did was Australia wide or worldwide?
Ashley Winning:
It was Australia wide,
Julia Jones:
Yeah. And tell me why did you do this research?
Ashley Winning:
I wanted to know what women's expectations were around the postpartum and to see if they were getting support around postpartum. Look. I asked in the survey, I said to them, I'm wanting to get an idea of how new mothers were feeling or thinking before having their baby and then after having their baby, because there's a big transition from before motherhood to transitioning into motherhood. And this survey was for those mothers who did not feel supported during the postpartum period, whatever that meant for them, because there's so many different feelings of being supported or not. And my aim was to support and nourish as many mothers as possible so that they can have a wonderful time with their new baby. I believe that we all deserve the love and support the world has to offer, and I plan to bring more of that into the world.
Julia Jones:
I love it. And I'm betting that you had so many responses because my experience is when you ask women about their experience of the transition to motherhood, they have so many stories that they're desperate to talk to someone about, and they feel that loneliness and that isolation. And the biggest question they ask themselves usually is, am I the only one who feels this way? What's wrong with me? Why can't I cope? And they often don't realise that. In fact, most of us are like this. So yes. Did you get loads of responses?
Ashley Winning:
Yeah, I did. Usually when I put out a survey, it's really hard to get 10 to 20 responses, and that's really, really trying. And I got over 135 responses within 24 hours, and I was just blown away by how many women were so eager to share their postpartum experiences with me. And I found that talking with women in postpartum, so many women are desperate to share their experiences and just talk about what had happened, what happened in birth, what happened in pregnancy, what happened in those first few months, even the first couple of years, just to find out if that was normal or just tell other people what was happening in their postpartum. But we've got to open that forum for them to be able to feel safe and actually feel that they can talk about those really raw motherhood stories
Julia Jones:
Because there's always this fear isn't there, that if you do open up and say, I am really struggling, then people are going to judge you and think that you're a bad mom. So there is a fear about sharing this, but at the same time, I think we are kind of breaking through this code of silence a little bit. I feel like this generation of mothers are perhaps more open and honest about their experiences, and because I think we've moved into this online world as well, we have more avenues to make sure our voices are heard and to realise that we're not alone. So yeah, it's a really interesting time. I'd love to know what are some of the main things that you learned? What were the sort of key findings?
Ashley Winning:
There were heaps of key findings, but just having a think about some of the really main ones that really stuck out for me. I was really surprised to find that 85% of the women who responded to I had 135 women who responded to the survey, 85% of those women who responded were expecting support during the postpartum, and a hundred percent of them did not receive the support that they were expecting.
Julia Jones:
Yeah, we're under this delusion. We think that we are going to get support, we think, and that's a lot of people. There's going to be a small number of people who realise that perhaps they don't have family around or they're not close with their family. They know that's not going to work out. But most of us think, oh yeah, my friends, my family, we'll figure this out together. And actually no one gets the support that they need. Yeah,
Ashley Winning:
I think there's so much to consider whether the family's working, whether they live close to you, what kind of relationship you had before, what kind of relationship you have currently. Even having that conversation with people and seeing in what capacity that you feel that they could support you and what capacity they feel that they could support you in having that conversation. It just so many women, myself included, expect millions of people to be around to support you because you get so much support in pregnancy. And then unfortunately, we find that once you've had the hold of that precious little bundle of joy, it kind of gets a bit boring and people don't seem to come around anymore, which is really sad. So I just found that so many mothers needed much more support than they getting. And I was really heartbroken that when I was reading the responses, every time I read the responses, I could really hear the hurt in the words that I was reading in the stories. And some of the words that just kept popping up were alone, isolated, overwhelmed, stressed, like one lady said, one mother said, asking why breastfeeding wouldn't work, just asking, sitting there alone, just asking those questions. These are the words, the mothers who responded to me, well, I just want to wrap them up and tell them they're all doing an amazing job, and I just don't understand why it's so hard that they're not being provided this support.
Julia Jones:
Yeah, absolutely. And I think pregnant women who are listening to this should really listen up and pay attention to this because even if you're in the 85% of pregnant women who think that you'll get the support you need, you're also in the a hundred percent of women who do not get the support that they need. I don't rarely know of anyone who says, yeah, it was awesome and I got all the help I needed. I mean, it just doesn't happen. So get more help than you think you need. And like Ashley saying really clearly, ask people for what you need and find the right people who are going to be able to help you. But I think we also have this cultural problem we of people don't even know what you need. So even if people are willing, people might have, a pregnant woman might have her mom or a husband or a midwife, even professionals who say that they're going to help and they try to help, but because we don't really have a good understanding of what postpartum women need, the help is often really not helpful at all. It's often the opposite. And people will find that it's better to have no help than have the kind of judgement and advice that they are getting.
Ashley Winning:
Definitely. I felt so judged, and I hear it all the time from new mothers. They have their family around them or they have friends around them, and they're constantly given advice that just doesn't feel right for them. And no matter how many times they say, look, I'm just going to try it my way. I'm just going to keep, it just keeps, the opinions keep coming and it just makes you feel so closed off. And then you end up saying, okay, I don't want you around. And then you're left with no one, and then you become lonely and isolated and you just go down another windy road. And it's just so hard. It is really hard.
Julia Jones:
It is really hard. It is a hard transformation, and I don't think even when you have the right support, it's still not easy. But the different is that it doesn't have to be suffering. It can be a deep transformation and a big change in your life, but it can be in a space that is safe and held and nurtured so that it's a process. It's a journey, but it doesn't have to be suffering. Tell me a little bit about the different kinds of support, because you did also have another really interesting finding about the support that pregnant women thought they would need, and then afterwards the support that they actually needed.
Ashley Winning:
Yes. So the support that the mothers were thinking before they had their babies, I asked them while they were pregnant with their first people to share the excitement, fear, change, hope and love. These are real words from real women, friendship, hands on help like tidying and holding the baby while showered and help with housework, physical task orientated support. So I got a lot of housework coming to do physical things, hold the baby while I go to the, have a shower or have a nap, and really physical hands-on sort of help. And I can understand why a lot of when you think about what support you're going to need, that's what you're going to think you're going to need. And then what they said was when I asked What support did you need the most, a lot of it was emotional support. So someone to talk to, recovery and breastfeeding, to have our privacy respected and to be emotionally supported, not just physically someone to look after me, reassurance, emotional support, someone to sit with me, help with breastfeeding, tell me I was doing a good job, that the exhaustion wouldn't last forever. And talking, being fed, loved a friend, someone to talk to about anything and a shoulder to cry on. And that's a complete change to what they thought they needed and what they thought after they had their babies.
Julia Jones:
And that's a really stark difference, isn't it? And it shows our cultural lack of understanding of that emotional transformation of the way that you change and the enormous emotional journey you go on when you become a mother. And many other cultures will acknowledge that as a rite of passage, and they'll have ceremonies and rituals around that celebrate and support the mother through this time. And of course, the practical help is also needed. You do need someone to make sure that there's food on the table and the older kids are dropped at school and you get to have a shower and whatever. But that's absolutely not the end of the story. And without the emotional support, it's just definitely not enough.
Ashley Winning:
And one of the favourite quotes that I've actually taken from you, Julia, is mothering the mother. Because that just perfectly explains exactly what new mothers need and what newborn mothers need. They just need someone to mother them in whatever capacity it is every day. It changes every hour, every minute it changes, whether it's just holding them, holding space for them, making a hot cup of tea, holding the baby, just reassuring them, getting them something to a nice nourishing meal or putting them to bed. That's really what they need, isn't it? Just mothering the mother.
Julia Jones:
Absolutely. And I actually got that phrase from a woman called Sally Flaxen, who I think she's in New York. She's definitely in the US somewhere. And she had a long time ago, I think in the seventies or eighties, she used to have a radio show where she would interview people about their postpartum traditional care from different cultures. And then she's now written, well, a long time ago, it has many print runs by now, but she has a book called Mothering the Mother, which is exactly about that. Oh, she
Ashley Winning:
Is the lady who wrote about Sarah from Uganda,
Julia Jones:
I think that's from her book. Yes. She has a bunch of stories in there, which are really beautiful.
Ashley Winning:
Oh, I have to get my hands on that book because I obviously am drawn to her. She obvious has a very beautiful way.
Julia Jones:
Yes. And Sally Flexon. Yep. She's great. And I completely agree with that sentiment that whilst we think we need just the practical cooking, cleaning, shopping kind of help, and we do definitely what we need most of all, is that just that holding space, that emotional support as well. So what was it like? Tell me what their experiences were actually like.
Ashley Winning:
So I got a lot of responses. I asked questions where they could give me their response and their words so that I could see exactly how they were feeling. So I asked them, what do you think new mothers need the most? So they've been through this transformational experience and they're reflecting back. So this is what some of the mothers said, compassion and empathy, reassurance. Being a new mom makes you feel wholly unprepared to do anything, someone to focus on them rather than all the focus on the baby home visits, nourishment, nurturing, encouragement to be told they're doing the best job they can possibly be doing, and that they're all their baby needs. They need to know it's okay to feel lost, defeated, and hopeless. They need to know they're not alone and that everyone feels these things in some form or another. They need to know that motherhood is so much harder than anything else you've ever expected, but it's worth every tear and sleepless night. They need someone to tell them that they're doing a great job. And someone else said, help with the little things, sleep and help at home. That really resonates with me what they've just said.
Julia Jones:
I completely agree. And the one that really stands out there is one woman said, being a new mom makes you feel wholly unprepared to do anything, which is exactly the opposite of the way we'd want a new mom to feel. Ideally, a new mom would go through this process of this transformation and come out the other side feeling confident and prepared and strong and capable. But instead, the way that our system works just completely undermines all of her intuition, all of her trust in her body and her baby and her ability to do things. And so she comes out the other end with feeling completely useless and hopeless and it's never going to work, and she's not enough and all of that kind of thing. So those experiences just really show the difference that if these women had that emotional support, how better prepared would they be for their life, their new life ahead?
Ashley Winning:
I know we just go through this big funnel. We go to school and we get told what to do, and then we go to work and we get told what to do, and then we get pregnant and we get told what to do, and we go to plan our birth and we're told what we're going to do. And even when our baby's going to be born for a lot of women with inductions and schedules and that sort of thing, and then we have our baby, and then we are given our baby, we go home. And then some of us will have a health nurse that will come out, a complete stranger. And so then we are told what to do again most of the time. And then we're left alone. And then we look at our partners and we look around and we say, okay, so what do we do?
Ashley Winning:
And we're never taught to trust ourselves and then ever we then are told, go to the gp, and then we're told what to do. And it's like a never ending cycle of when are we going to give the power back to the mothers and the families for them to be able to make these choices and to actually do what they know is right for their baby. Because the minute that I started to do what I felt was right for my family, everything was peaceful, everything was easy, and it would just flowed. It was just natural. When I stopped listening to Wake Your Baby after four hours and give your baby a formula top up and whatever else the advice was, I never did this with my baby. And it's so overwhelming and confusing. The different blog posts, the different information you see, your friends giving you information, your mother-in-Law, all these people giving you so much conflicting information that we really need to learn to listen to ourselves and trust that we know that we will figure it out, and it's okay to make mistakes. That's something that I learned from you, Julia, is that it's okay for mothers to make mistakes, and that's the best gift that you can ever give a mother.
Julia Jones:
Yeah. Well, obviously I agree. I was going to say, hang on. But no, it really is such an empowering thing to say to a woman, you know what? You don't need all this information, advice. You've got a perfectly designed body, a perfectly designed brain. You've got a beautiful baby in your arms telling you exactly what to do. You just need someone to tell you you're doing a great job. Keep on going and
Ashley Winning:
Just have those people around you who are going to tell you you're doing a good job is just what's going to help you dig into what exactly it is that you need to do so that you've got that person mothering you, you've got those people around you supporting you, and you're doing a good job, and you'll stumble and make mistakes, but then you'll learn from those mistakes, and then that'll make you a much more confident mother and you'll learn. Because that's what mothering is all about, isn't it? Just making mistakes and learning.
Julia Jones:
Exactly. And I'm still making mistakes. My oldest is eight years
Ashley Winning:
Old. We are. We'll be until the day we die because it's all brand new and
Julia Jones:
One day. Exactly. Every stage,
Ashley Winning:
Grandma.
Julia Jones:
Yeah,
Ashley Winning:
And we'll never know.
Julia Jones:
So tell me what their experiences were like. So obviously a hundred percent of them didn't get the support that they needed. And what happened then?
Ashley Winning:
So I asked them, how was your postpartum? What was it like? So I asked them to explain to me what their postpartums were like. So I took out a couple of examples that really stuck out for me. So one lady said the initial support was good, as everyone wants to be around a new baby, but then it dies off especially after the recovery, in the recovery period, if that even has a timeframe. She was a C-section mom, so I guess for her six weeks, you don't need no more help. See you later.
Julia Jones:
Which is a strong expectation even for non c-section moms, isn't it? There's this idea that at some point you'll just bounce back and get back to normal and get on with your life.
Ashley Winning:
And I think that for women who deliver vaginally, it's probably a lot less as well, a couple of weeks. And I've heard friends tell me about stories where someone's turned around and said, well, you're not pregnant anymore, so carry this heavy box a week after she'd given birth or something like that. And I was just, the lady didn't know she'd never had the baby, but just thinking that your body bounces right back and everything's just, that's the thing.
Julia Jones:
And you only need to talk to a few new moms to realise the huge problems that women have with their pelvic floor, their lower back, their abdominal strength. We could go on and on. ILAs, what about your
Ashley Winning:
Boobs? Your boobs are so sore because life, so sore. I know everything's coming back from nine months of growing a baby, so it's going to take a while and a lot of rest and a lot of nourishing food and time to really come back to how you were before. And that's okay. We don't have to rush this process, but I'll read out some of the other examples as well. Some of the other wordings. So not enough clinical support, especially when found out our baby had tyres which were neglected by the hospital and felt abused by the at-home care nurse. The first few weeks were a mess, and you're not prepared for that. Another lady says, very dark, very lonely. I didn't realise I had p and d and I was alone from the time Bub was four weeks old from 8:00 AM to 8:00 PM every day.
Ashley Winning:
I couldn't feed bub and was encouraged to Express Express, which was a whole other challenge in itself, self. Another mother said, long, uneducated and painful. Had trouble feeding my son. So I became an exclusive pumper, which was awful, had a large tear, and I didn't really know how to help heal it at all. Another mom says, I am home alone seven days a week, 24 7. My husband's overseas. Not one friend has offered to help me, not even cooked me a meal, even brought me a coffee. And this other lady says, I had twins and my friends made no effort to even visit or see how I was going isolated. Confusing, tiring, heartbreaking, depressing, depressing, exhausting, and so lonely. Just hearing the words, very lonely, isolating, stress, feel tiring over and over and over again. Julia.
Julia Jones:
It's really, I mean, it's hard to read, isn't it? When you keep saying hundreds of mothers feeling this way.
Ashley Winning:
Yeah, it's so sad.
Julia Jones:
Yeah. So the big question, what are you doing about it?
Ashley Winning:
So I just recently, over the last week or so, I sat down with Antonia from Peaceful Postnatal, and we ran an interview, a video interview. So we basically sat down and Antonio interviewed me, and so I got all of the results and information on this one video. So I'm hoping that I can share this with other doers, other birth workers, other women who support women in postpartum so that they can actually understand how mothers are feeling and help them to support new mothers and actually see how they're feeling and have a bit of empathy to next time they're working. I know that so many women who work in this space have so much love and empathy for mothers, but I think even for me, who I feel very empathetic and I'm very fresh out of postpartum myself, I feel that this was just a burst of energy to just remind me of exactly how it was, even though it was, how long ago was it? It was about 18 months ago. I was in postpartum myself. But it quickly fades away the intense feelings and the rawness. I'll also be doing a couple of blog posts. I'll break them down into a couple of blog posts and send them out to people on my newsletter list, I should say, and also on my social media.
Julia Jones:
Yeah, that's great. And you put together a few little tips for people. So if people are pregnant and they're kind of thinking, holy crap, you've just scared the bejesus out of me, what can they do about this?
Ashley Winning:
So we talked a little bit about it before, but I think we did anyways, but I think there's no late time to start building your village. I'm still building my village, and I found motherhood puts you in that position where you need to start building a village. So looking at those around you who actually are supportive of you and seeing how they do support you and how they can support you. Are they nonjudgmental? Are they a really great cook where your mom might be really great at cooking, but maybe she's not really that supportive, so maybe she can drop around a few meals for you so you don't have to stress about getting nourishing food. Or maybe you've got a really good friend who you know is just going to be able to sit there and hold space for you and watch your baby while you go and have a shower.
Ashley Winning:
Just recognising those people around you. And if you don't have any of those people going and finding online communities and spaces or looking out for pregnancy activities like prenatal yoga, prenatal Pilates, or anything that suits you, where pregnant women are going to be doing activities, swimming or anything like that where you can actually start connecting with local women. There are community hubs as well all around Australia where you can reach out and find that support. I would also recommend that you write down three people who can help you with certain things, write down what they can do, like I've just discussed, whether it's washing, cooking, holding your baby while you're sleeping, or shower, taking you to appointments, listen to you, all the things that Julia and I were talking about before. And also another one is setting up a meal train. And I would just get a friend to organise this when you have your baby shower or mother blessing, www.mealtrain.com. It's a really great way to schedule E in people to make meals for you or little snacks, and they can bring it round in the first few weeks of postpartum, or even beforehand, you can have it in your freezer.
Julia Jones:
I love it. I especially love your point of that. Not everyone can help you in particular ways. Everyone has different ways that they can help you. And a lot of time we put too much pressure on one person. Like a lot of women just rely on their husband for everything. And some husbands are really good at cooking. Some are really happy to be hands-on with the baby and others love cleaning. But it's unlikely that your husband is going to be able to do all of that and take you to appointments and hold the space for you emotionally, as well as the fact that it's fairly unlikely that he's had experience with things like breastfeeding. So you definitely want to be thinking about who is in your life, who can help you with all of the different things that you're going to need. And don't just put all your eggs in one basket.
Ashley Winning:
Definitely. Because if that person gets sick with a cold, they're out of the game for a few weeks at least. So just that alone, but it's also good to have such a varied someone with so many different skills that you can call on in your time of need, which is so good. I also, I think that was it, wasn't it? Meal train.com?
Julia Jones:
Sorry. Yes. Yeah, we mentioned that. No, I love all those tips. So yes, if anyone's listening at home and you're pregnant, go and go and do that. Go and find people who can help you and think of what they're good at. Set up a meal train. And really, it's never too late to start, as Ashley mentioned, whether you're pregnant, even if you've got a one-year-old or 2-year-old, and you're still feeling like, oh my gosh, I'm still feeling isolated and overwhelmed. It is time to start that now. And what if people need your help, Ashley, where can people find you and perhaps get your emails or come along to a local event on the Gold Coast?
Ashley Winning:
Yes, I would love to hear from you. So if you would like to contact me, you can jump into my Facebook group. It's called the Motherhood Circle Community Group, and it's just on Facebook, it's completely free, and we've got mothers in there so you can find non-judgmental support. I support any kind of parenting. So come in there. We are judgement free. And also on my website, I've created a postpartum plan. It's a free plan to help you if you are currently pregnant or you're currently in your postpartum period. I think it's a 10 page document, and it's got so many wonderful tips and tricks and information and questions in there for you to get organised for your postpartum. And you can find that on the website. Just head to www.themotherhoodcircle.com au.
Julia Jones:
I love it. We'll put those links up with the podcast in the show notes. And do you have anything else to add, Ashley?
Ashley Winning:
No. I really just want to send love and blessings to everyone and every mother out there who's had a baby and having a baby. And to know that, that we are here, we're here to support you. All of us are here.
Julia Jones:
I love it, Ashley and I agree. We are all in this together. And if you're ever feeling alone, please do reach out. And there are many, many places you can reach out to professionals like Ashley. You can reach out to your gp, you can reach out to your friends and family, you can reach out in Facebook communities. So definitely don't suffer in silence. Together, we can make a big difference to the way that women are experiencing the transformation to motherhood. Thanks so much, Ashley.
Ashley Winning:
Thank you.
Julia Jones:
Alright, and I'll see everyone else on the podcast next week. Bye.
