One-stop-shop for resilience and parenting skills for at-risk mums

VULNERABLE new mums will have access to a one-stop-shop to boost their resilience and bond with their baby, in a new intensive program at a Melbourne hospital.

VULNERABLE new mums will have access to a one-stop-shop to boost their resilience and bond with their baby, in an intensive program at the Royal Women’s Hospital.

The two-week program — launched this week — will help women who have experienced anxiety, depression or trauma to learn parenting skills as early as a month after birth.

The BEAR House program is an extension of a series of Building Early Attachment and Resilience trials run at the Royal Women’s, that over the past three years has seen 130 at-risk new mothers and mums-to-be build parenting confidence over 10 weeks.

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This intensive 10-day version, which has been funded by the mental health charity Liptember, and will run off-site in Carlton, will see six women at a time learn mindfulness, how to understand the language of newborns, tap into psychological support and have access to an on-site maternal and child health nurse for help with common early issues, such as sleeping, feeding and settling.

Director of the Centre for Women’s Mental Health Professor Louise Newman said it was vital vulnerable women were supported to provide optimal early parenting and bonding, given that the first three years of life predicted a child’s future mental health vulnerability.

“Getting the early interventions in place gives parents more confidence, and the developmental benefits for children are very strong,” Prof Newman said. “This is the first step, taking the program out of the hospital. But our ultimate goal is to roll this out in other communities and train local health services so people have local access.”

Mother-of-four Tess Tagg took part in the mindfulness trial to dampen antenatal anxiety, after her first pregnancy miscarried at 17 weeks and her first-born, Elizabeth, died 14 minutes after birth in 2010.

She also took part in the Women’s program teaching new parents how to decode newborns after her youngest, Rosie, was born almost two years ago.

Tess Tagg with daughters Millie, 6, Grace, 4, and Rosie, nearly 2. Picture: Sarah Matray

“After Elizabeth died, all the innocence and that pregnancy glow all disappeared and I folded in on myself,” Mrs Tagg said. “Mindfulness taught me to be in the present; not look back at the grief or go off into my la-la land of what-ifs.

“Going back into the hospital every week was very good for me, so I had little hurdles to jump and I could get the reassurance that my baby was OK.”

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