- Enjoy Your Baby, a free course for new mothers, presented by the Canadian Mental Health Association, is being offered at two North Shore locations: Thursdays, Nov. 6-Dec. 4, 1:30 p.m.-3 p.m., at Midwifery Care North Shore, 510 Chesterfield Ave., North Vancouver; and Saturdays, Nov. 15-Dec. 13, 10-11:30 a.m. at Family Services of the North Shore, 101-255 West First Ave., North Vancouver. Info and registration: vb.cmha.bc.ca or llttf.ca.
Those behind a new mental health promotion course aimed at new moms experiencing stress as they adjust to motherhood hope that by offering them an opportunity to come together with other women and share their concerns, as well as by arming them with skills, they'll feel better and ultimately take greater enjoyment in their new role.
The course, Enjoy Your Baby, is being presented by the Canadian Mental Health Association and is being piloted in Metro Vancouver and Prince George. Two sessions are being presented on the North Shore, one at Midwifery Care North Shore that got underway Thursday, and the other at Family Services of the North Shore, set to launch Saturday, Nov. 15.
"Increasingly there's an awareness that the period of new motherhood, while it's wonderful and exciting, can also be very challenging for new moms," says Enjoy Your Baby's co-developer Michelle Haring, a registered psychologist and director at the North Shore Stress and Anxiety Clinic.
"A lot of new moms have difficulty coming forward and talking about the challenges of that experience and a lot of times aren't getting the support that they need. CMHA is very committed to reducing stigma and promoting access to programming that will help people to enjoy better lives and better mental health and so this kind of dovetails nicely with that objective," says the North Vancouver resident.
It's believed that one in five women will experience some sort of mental health challenge in the postpartum period, ranging in severity from "baby blues," which is very mild, lasts a few days and typically goes away on its own, all the way through to more serious diagnosable postpartum depression or anxiety, says Haring.
"So about one in five, which is actually a very high number of people are experiencing that, and yet many women feel like they can't come forward and talk about that," she says.
The course seeks to provide a safe and accessible environment for women to address those issues.
Enjoy Your Baby is based on a booklet of the same name, by Glasgow, Scotland-based psychiatrist Chris Williams, who Haring collaborated with to create the program.
The course is intended for new mothers whose babies are between one and 14 months with mild to moderate problems with low mood, stress or anxiety that could put them at risk for more serious issues with postpartum depression or anxiety. Over the course of five-sessions, two facilitators - a trained CMHA staff member, and a health professional with experience in maternal and child health - will work to arm participants with a host of skills to take home with them, ideally enabling them to make positive changes in their lives so as to better enjoy parenthood.
Enjoy Your Baby joins two other cognitive behavioural therapy skills-based mental health promotion services offered by the CMHA, Bounce Back, telephone coaching for adults, and Living Life to the Full, a group course for adults or youth - both of which Haring also offers her expertise to.
"The great thing about cognitive-behavioural therapy is that it is an evidence-based treatment approach. There are a lot of different approaches to dealing with mental health concerns but cognitivebehavioural therapy is relatively unique in being one of the ones that has actually been tested and shown to be effective in randomized clinical trials. We know that it works and so we can feel good about being able to offer that," says Haring.
Enjoy Your Baby was designed to be presented in a fun, interactive manner for new mothers.
"It's really a class where people come and learn different skills that they can use to feel better. There will be that aspect of support because new moms are somewhat sharing their experiences and talking about what they tried out and how that worked and what they want to do to take things forward, but it's not a therapy group per se," she says.
Participants have an opportunity to practise the skills and engage in exercises so they can figure out how to make the tools work in their everyday lives.
The hope is to continue offering Enjoy Your Baby locally, as well as expanding it both provincially and nationally.
During the pilot phase, Enjoy Your Baby will be offered at no cost to moms, and childcare will be available.
Development was supported by proceeds from last year's Shoppers Drug Mart Ride Don't Hide fundraiser, which raises funds for CMHA programs serving women and their families.
For interested women unable to attend the upcoming sessions, the Enjoy Your Baby booklet is available online, visit llttf.ca.
