Joyce Fegan: New mums want proper support, not a box of stuff
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If due dates are ever to be believed, I will be holding a newborn in my arms in give-or-take three or four weeks' time.
Yesterday, the Government announced a new scheme, The Little Baby Bundle, a box filled with items such as socks, reusable nappies, a baby sling, bibs, a nasal aspirator, and mittens. Several hundred new parents will begin to receive one of these boxes in the coming days.
Here's what I wish was in my baby box: proper and ongoing breastfeeding support; accurate evidence-based information about what to expect when it comes to baby sleep, or not sleeping; but most importantly — concrete and compassionate support.
That support could be for someone to hold my baby while I shower off a night of milk leaks in those early weeks, or for someone to take a supportive walk with a few months in when the world has "gone back to normal" and the full effects of sleep deprivation have begun to accrue.
Maybe an actual hand could go in the box, a hand to hold the baby while they cry "for no reason", and when all sorts of rocking, soothing, and singing have failed to find a fix.
Yesterday morning, in my local community pool, as news of The Little Baby Bundle broke, I saw, no, I heard, the unmistakable cries of a newborn infant. Piercing. Consistent. And growing in intensity.
A mother was wheeling a pram, a dead giveaway of the baby's age in those early days, towards a table with one hand and holding a brown paper bag in the other.
She removed the rain cover and pushed down the hood of the pram to retrieve, and attempt to soothe, her newborn.
A guy working in the pool's cafe dropped over her takeaway coffee. It's not usually a table service kind of venue.
But I guess he could see her hands were full as she rocked the baby on her left shoulder, her coffee growing cold, the croissant in the brown paper bag going uneaten.
It's a common scene.
This woman did not need more stuff to hold, she physically could not hold what she already had. This woman didn't need more stuff, this woman needed more support.
The intention of The Little Baby Bundle feels sweet in sentiment, but when it comes to the cold hard reality of the labour of care work, it misses the mark.
When my first child was born on the cusp of the first lockdown, we left the hospital with breastfeeding not yet established.
The only place to turn to for support was Cuidiú — the parent-to-parent voluntary support charity. A volunteer named Fiona replied to WhatsApp messages that generally asked: "Is this normal?" The answer was always "yes". Without Cuidiú Fiona, breastfeeding would absolutely not have continued.
Ireland has some of the lowest breastfeeding rates in the world — with many women blaming themselves for "failing" at this learned skill in those early and vulnerable days.
A recent study of 5,500 women by Technical University Dublin (TU Dublin) and Bainne Beatha found that the biggest drop-off in breastfeeding happened in the first week of a newborn's life.
"Families are being let down by the lack of access to expert help at the right time," said Dr Liz O'Sullivan, lecturer in nutrition at TU Dublin.
Support comes in the form of the Government adequately staffing maternity hospitals with lactation consultants, providing up-to-date breastfeeding education to healthcare professionals who come in contact with new mothers, as well as providing free access to breastfeeding-related consultations for the weeks after birth.
And that's just breastfeeding. There is the issue of the pelvic floor, and abdominal muscles, postpartum. In Ireland, we laugh about it, while in France, they invest in it.
As part of the standard postpartum care in France, every woman receives physiotherapy after she delivers a baby. And they can be provided with up to 20 sessions of physiotherapy. This long-standing "perinatal education" programme aims to prevent incontinence and reproductive organ prolapse.
Studies have shown that this aftercare has significantly reduced incontinence and pelvic pain at nine months post-delivery.
Much literature and many articles have been written about early motherhood. Recent headlines include "The trauma of early motherhood".
But perhaps it's time we reframed that narrative to "The trauma of early motherhood in a void of support".
There is an Irish charity called Let's Match Mums which matches refugees in need of children's goods with local mothers who have those items to pass down the village line.
On their Instagram account, you'll find posts of spreadsheets breaking down Ireland by county, and stating what age child needs what baby equipment.
Then there are those of us with permanent residency and permanent housing, and most of our baby stuff is passed on to us or lent to us by more experienced mothers. There is already an invisible, unspoken "little baby bundle" in existence in Ireland.
What new parents really need is more support and less stuff.