You are best known as an obstetrician, because of your ante-natal programme The Gentle Birth Method. Why did you write a post-natal book?
I work very closely with my mothers on The Gentle Birth Method, and have always offered a post-natal programme for mothers coming to my London clinic. But I did find that the shortcoming of my first book, The Gentle Birth Method, was that it didn’t leave any scope for advising and helping the readers beyond the birth itself. I strongly believe that both mother and baby need just as much help in the months after birth –in terms of physical recovery and emotional adjustment –as they do in the last 12 weeks of their pregnancy.
So, even though you’re an obstetrician, you also have paediatric experience?
Yes I do. My one-on-one approach at my clinic means that I have advised and treated thousands of newborn babies, and I advocate a range of therapies – from ‘cupping’, to special baby massage, to cranial-sacral therapy – which are all specifically aimed at soothing and calming babies in the transitional weeks after birth. Colic, for example, is a condition that can build up (it usually doesn’t appear for the first three weeks or so), but if you treat the baby from birth, there’s no reason why wind should develop and become a problem.
Can your book only help mothers who have enjoyed the archetypal ‘Gentle Birth’?
No, it is specifically devised to help all mothers, regardless of their birth experience. When writing this book I did not assume that its readers would have followed the ante-natal programme (although I hope that if The Gentle First Year is a reader’s introduction to my methods, they will be inspired to follow the ante-natal programme for their next pregnancy!). But even with a pregnancy programme such as mine, there can never be any guarantees about the birth you will experience. While there is a lot a mother can do to take charge of her obstetric health – or ‘birth fitness’, as I call it – there are still many factors that remain out of her control, and it’s important that the mother does not feel she is to ‘blame’ or has failed in some way. A certain percentage of my mothers have caesareans (less than 10%) and I would never expect that figure to reduce to zero. I do not believe we ever will – nor should – have complete control over birth. So this book is for mothers who’ve had anything from a c-section, forceps, ventouse, full tear or no tear at all. Each scenario is dealt with individually and without bias.
The book is divided into two sections: Recovery and Discovery. Why did you section it like this?
For the first six months after birth, and most certainly the first three, the mother’s body is in an enormous state of flux. Not only is she healing from the birth itself, but also her body is recovering from the chronic effects of pregnancy. People increasingly forget that the pregnant body grows over nine months and it does not, therefore, snap back to its pre-pregnant state in a couple of weeks. Even if you can fit into your jeans the week after the birth, your body is still in a healing phase. It’s not just weight and muscle tone that needs to recover, but also the major organs. For example, the heart enlarges during pregnancy, blood volume increases by 30%, the stomach, diaphragm and bowel have been squashed and the ribs are pushed out. It takes a significant amount of time for the mother’s body to recover from this process, but I think this recovery is largely overlooked in western culture, and there is a lot of pressure to ‘get on with it’. I think many mothers – even those who follow an ante-natal programme - concentrate solely on the baby and forget about themselves after the birth. So I encourage my mothers to nourish their own bodies for at least six months after the birth.
The Discovery section is based on the six-to-twelve-month period, and focuses much more on the emotional journey into motherhood. Bonding is an aspect of parenting that I nurture in The Gentle Birth Method, and which naturally takes on even more importance in The Gentle First Year. There are many things we can do to enhance, protect and nurture this relationship – the most important in our lives – and so I talk about the importance of continued one-on-one time, skin-to-skin contact, lullabies, rhythms and routines. They can be of enormous comfort, not only to the mother and baby, but also to the father too.
Is this a book that must be read cover-to-cover?
No, not really. My first book The Gentle Birth Method is intended that way because it will be read over the course of the pregnancy, but there really isn’t the time to sit down and read for hours with a newborn. So The Gentle First Year can be used as a trouble-shooting guide to dip into when you hit a new phase, or need some advice or another perspective. Alongside the birth scenarios, there are sections on weaning and teething, for example, which are very time-specific, as well as a health index for illnesses and conditions that are common in the first year for both mother and baby.
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