Evidence suggests there are five things that everyone can do to improve their mental health and wellbeing:
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Connect with other people
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Be physically active
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Learn new skills
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Give to others
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Stay in the present moment
In this section you will find a range of short and simple coping, soothing and grounding exercises to help women stay in the present moment and cope with day-to-day stress. Encourage women to try one small thing every day and this can help to stay positive and get the most out of life and motherhood.
In this section you will also find the Cheshire and Merseyside Specialist Perinatal resource packs, which are also available through a number of national websites, including the Institute for Health Visiting, NSPCC, Association for Infant Mental Health, and many maternity units across the country.
These workbooks and guides have been developed to support learning for both parents and professionals to better support recovery of a variety of psychological challenges in the perinatal period.
Guides and workbooks for parents and professionals
The following workbooks and guides are intended to support, educate and build confidence in parents and professionals exploring and thinking about mental health and parent infant relationships in the perinatal period.
These can be shared and used for ANY professionals working with mums and parents and available to download and access below:
- Being pregnant, preparing for birth
- Being with your baby, becoming a mum
- Bonding with your baby, becoming a parent
- Staying at home: supporting you with your routines, activity and wellbeing
- Opening up conversations about difference: race, culture and ethnicity
- Opening up Conversations around Parent Infant Relationships
- Creating safety in conversations with families around birth trauma
Workbooks for Parent and Perinatal Professionals to use
The following workbooks are intended to be worked through in stages with the support of a perinatal mental health professional. They can be downloaded and accessed below:
- Grounding and Stabilisation Skills for Trauma (including Perinatal and Birth Trauma)
- Coping with Distress in the Perinatal Period
- Managing Anxiety and Worry During the Perinatal Period
- Making sense of frightening thoughts in the perinatal period
- My Wellbeing and Recovery After Postpartum Psychosis
- Moving towards change during your parenthood journey – coming soon
Staying at home: supporting you with your routines, activity and wellbeing
Self-isolating can be lonely, frustrating and sometimes overwhelming. Your routines and the roles you identify with may have changed. You may have older children who are now off school or getting used to working from home.
This resource pack is designed to support you through these times, in particular to think with you about how your routines, activities and relationships can support your mental health and wellbeing.
Being pregnant, preparing for birth
Having a new baby is an incredible life changing event. You may be feeling a mixture of emotions as you prepare for the next stages in your journey through pregnancy to meeting your baby. We are also living through the coronavirus pandemic.
This booklet aims to give you encouragement, supportive ideas and help you identify simple steps to care for your wellbeing and prepare to give birth. Lots of mums have continued to have babies safely and happily during the pandemic.
Being with your baby, becoming a mum
You are now or about to become a mum to a new baby, maybe for the first time or again.
Having a new baby is a remarkable transition, and even more so now during the current coronavirus pandemic. These are very unusual and extraordinary times, which create many new and unexpected challenges.
This booklet aims to share supportive ideas and words of encouragement as you enter into this next transition to discover yourself as a mum, get to know and bond with your baby.
Bonding with your baby, becoming a parent
Whether you are a dad, a partner, or a parent-to-be, becoming a parent is an incredible milestone. You may be feeling a mixture of excitement and hope, but it is also entirely natural to be experiencing worry and doubt.
These are extraordinary times. Preparing to become a parent during the pandemic creates unexpected challenges, which may leave you with many questions about the path ahead.
This booklet aims to share supportive ideas to help you in your journey ahead, in getting to know and bonding with your baby both before they are born and beyond.
Perinatal positivity
Perinatal positivity uses the real voices and experiences of women and men who have had mental wellbeing difficulties around the time of pregnancy, childbirth and beyond.
The Perinatal Positivity website aims to help parents to emotionally prepare and find support, if needed. There is a subtitled version of the Perinatal Positivity film on the clips page.
Perinatal mental health tooklit
The Royal College of General Practitioners have developed this toolkit is a set of relevant tools to assist members of the primary care team to deliver the highest quality care to women with mental health problems in the perinatal period.