Becoming a mother can feel like being cracked wide open. Pregnancy is often painted as a time of glowing joy, but in reality it can be just as full of vulnerability, uncertainty and intense emotions.

I find the concept of Matrescence so helpful here. It compares the process of becoming a mother to the huge changes of adolescence. Just as teenagers navigate emotionally turbulent waters, so too do women during pregnancy and early motherhood, as their brain, body and identity undergo dramatic shifts. Research shows that brain changes begin during pregnancy and can last for at least two years postpartum. These shifts are understood to be adaptive - supporting mother–baby bonding - but can also heighten sensitivity to stress, making pregnancy challenges feel even harder.

Pregnancy: joy and strain side by side

Yes, pregnancy can bring joy - like feeling a baby kick for the first time. But it can also bring exhaustion, persistent nausea and vomiting, swollen limbs, hypertension, gestational diabetes, hair loss and disrupted sleep. Constant medical scrutiny can leave women feeling ‘poked’, ‘prodded’ and ‘done to’.

Your pregnant body can feel both unpredictable and public, stripped of privacy or control. Alongside these physical challenges, women are navigating shifting relationships, workplace discrimination or pressures, and a profound identity shift that may feel destabilising.

It’s no wonder that many women find themselves struggling emotionally during this time.

Shining a light on depression in pregnancy

We often hear about postnatal depression - as if difficulties only begin after birth. But for 7–15% of women, depression actually starts during pregnancy and continues after the baby arrives.

These figures are likely an underestimation. Many women work hard to keep up a ‘mask’ because of the powerful myth that pregnancy should be a joyful, happy time. Beneath the surface, they may be feeling low, anxious, angry, or hopeless. As I was quoted in this Mail Good Health piece: “Admitting to feeling difficult emotions during this time can feel shameful - especially in a culture that idealises pregnancy as universally joyful experience and frames motherhood as a defining marker of womanhood”.

What perinatal depression can feel like

Depression in pregnancy and postpartum doesn’t look the same for everyone. Common experiences include:

• Persistent low mood, tearfulness and exhaustion

• Feeling worthless or hopeless

• A lack of energy or motivation

• Disturbed sleep (beyond what’s “normal” for pregnancy or early motherhood)

• Thoughts of self-harm

• Scary, intrusive thoughts or constant worrying

• Anger and irritability (around 1 in 5 women report moderate anger in pregnancy)

Some women may also feel detached from their baby, but many don’t - it’s possible to love your little one deeply and still feel depressed, anxious, or overwhelmed by everything else.

Why it happens

Perinatal depression can be seen as a normal response to abnormal pressures. Factors that can play a role include:

• Hormonal shifts, sleep deprivation and physical strain

• Trauma, birth injury, or a difficult fertility journey

• Financial or relationship stress

• Loneliness, and the loss of “village” support that we’ve historically relied on

• Cultural pressure to “do it all” and parent perfectly

And this isn’t just about mothers. Around 1 in 10 fathers also experience depression during pregnancy and the first year postpartum.

The importance of support

Struggling emotionally doesn’t mean you’re failing. It means you’re human. This is a time when mums-to-be and new mothers deserve the most care, compassion and support.

Help is out there:

• Talk to someone you trust. Opening up to a friend, partner, or family member can be the first step.

• Speak with your GP. They can advise on safe medication, refer you to talking therapy, or connect you with your local specialist perinatal mental health service.

• Therapies that help. CBT, compassion-focused approaches, and trauma-informed therapies like EMDR can be powerful.

My final thoughts

Pregnancy and early motherhood are intense, vulnerable times. Feeling low, anxious or angry doesn’t mean you’re broken - it means you’re going through one of the most profound transitions of human life.

And getting help isn’t a sign of weakness - it’s an act of love, for yourself and your family.

With love,

Caroline x

Ref: Barba-Müller E. et al (2019). Brain plasticity in pregnancy and the postpartum period: links to maternal caregiving and mental health. Arch Womens Ment Health, 22(2):289-299.

How can I support you?

1. If you feel in need of a reset this Autumn, my self-paced course can support you to feel calmer and more in control of your anger and overwhelm.

   Attend a Live Q&A with me midway through, and watch live examples of rage with my co-therapist to map out what happens in hot moments - with practical ways to create a pause.

   

2. For an overview of my work, including accessing 1:1 therapy or ordering my book, click here.

1. Anger is a protective and energising emotion. It’s not just a sign something’s wrong - it mobilises your body to defend you. Anger can be sparked by physical threats, but more often in motherhood it’s triggered by unmet needs, overwhelm, and a deep sense of powerlessness. Unlike sadness, anger is energising - it activates the fight in fight-flight-freeze, flooding us with stress hormones and a sense of urgency. That white-hot, full-body sensation can feel like a fireball building inside. This is why we often seek release - shouting, slamming, or even throwing something. What’s key is learning how to discharge that tension safely and constructively - like doing jumping jacks, shaking it out, or running on the spot - rather than letting it build to eruption.

2. Anger is common in motherhood - yet still hidden. As many as one in three women feel intense anger in the first year postpartum - making it more prevalent than postnatal depression. Half of those also report feeling depressed, while the other half don’t. Anger can stand alone - but when a woman feels both angry and depressed, her low mood often feels more intense and lasts longer. Thanks to the damaging myth of ‘Supermum’, who has us believe we must always be calm, coping and in control, many mums still feel shame for expressing or even feeling anger.

3. Anger often masks deeper pain. Beneath the surface of rage, there’s often grief, shame, or disappointment - a mourning for unmet expectations, lost identity, or the calm, gentle mother we hoped we’d be. Sometimes, anger is the voice of our inner child who didn’t get the care she so needed.

   

4. Suppressing anger harms our bodies. While there’s more conversation around female rage today, many women are still socialised to silence it. But chronic repression of anger comes at a cost: long-term stress, increased inflammation and risk of autoimmune illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome and fibromyalgia. Women who suppress anger are twice as likely to die from heart-related disease. For Black women, who experience some of the highest breast cancer rates, studies have linked the illness to experiences of discrimination and the anger they cause.

   

5. You can learn to work with your anger - and transform it. Our anger story is shaped by what we experienced growing up - whether it was shamed, feared, or acted out destructively. But you don’t have to pass that story on. In my self-paced course, I guide mothers to build emotional awareness, release anger safely, and reparent yourselves with compassion - to become the kind of mother you want to be, free from cycles of perfectionism and control. I also support you to understand what hot moments with your child AND partner trigger in you - to shift unhelpful patterns and get your needs met so you can feel more connected and empowered.

COURSE INFO - CLICK HERE

Refs: Ou, C. H. et al. (2022). Correlates of Canadian mothers’ anger during the postpartum period: a cross-sectional survey. BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth, 22(1), 163. Rage Becomes Her - Soraya Chemaly

Dr Boyd Loves…

I’m really enjoying Clarissa Pinkola Estes’ book Women Who Run with the Wolves so far. It’s a soul-stirring invitation to reconnect with our Wild Woman within - the creative, ancient force that lives in every woman. Through myths and fairytales, Estes helps us reconnect with our fierce knowing, honour our tenderness and rage, and reclaim our untamed voice that patriarchy has sought to silence. I’ll write more when I’ve finished it but already, much is resonating, and I’m consciously looking for ways to help me connect with that wild part of me.

I thoroughly recommend Toxic Town, a powerful, painfully sad yet ultimately uplifting Netflix drama. Telling the story of how toxic dust from a former steel plant redevelopment in 1980s/90s Corby led to children born with limb differences.
A tale of heroic working class mothers, Susan McIntyre, Tracey Taylor & Maggie Mahon, who refused to be silenced - their burning rage driving a long battle for social justice. Culminating in a 2009 landmark court victory - the first case to link airborne toxins and congenital conditions.

Dear Life, by Rachel Clarke, is a heart-breaking, heart-opening, life-giving read. She writes about her career change from journalism to medicine, the loss of her beloved father and her decision to specialise in palliative care. Why? Because in end of life care she can offer comfort and compassion to the dying, helping them and their families plan and live out the death they want. As a psychologist who teaches emotional wellbeing to medics, I was fascinated by Clarke’s insights into her own medical training - her experiences of senior doctors who were so busy “sidestepping the matter of death themselves.”

For those of you going into half term - wishing you pockets of peace.

With love,

Caroline x

Some ways I can support you:

1. Join my community and sign up for my self-paced course for mothers.

   🎧Take me with you on buggy walks and listen on the go, attend a Live Q&A with me midway through, and watch live examples of rage with my co-therapist to map out what happens in hot moments - with proven ways to create a pause.

2. For an overview of my work, including accessing 1:1 therapy via my team of associates or ordering my book, click here.

To start, let me share this:

For all survivors of birth trauma -

Who felt silenced and not listened to during the birth

Who weren’t shown kindness and respect

Who were denied basic needs such as pain relief

Who were excluded from decision-making

Who were told you should be grateful for a healthy baby

Please know that you DIDN’T fail – the system failed you. And that whatever happened during your birth experience was NOT your fault. 

What is birth trauma?

As many as one in THREE women and birthing people experience some aspect of birth traumatic. Around 4-5 per cent of those develop post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). ‘Birth trauma’ includes any difficult experiences on your journey: from trying to conceive to pregnancy, birth and postpartum. What’s crucial is that birth trauma is subjective. It’s your own perception of events that’s key: a medically straightforward birth described as “textbook” on paper may be experienced as traumatic. What’s key is the meaning you made of those experiences, in which you felt perhaps very afraid, helpless or out of control.

After a traumatic birth, you may experience flashbacks, nightmares, intrusive memories of the birth and avoid any reminders of it. You may notice mood changes, feel irritable and ‘on alert’.

Last year the UK’s first ever inquiry into birth trauma by the APPG included “harrowing” stories of care lacking compassion. Women & birthing people told of being mocked, shouted at, ignored in labour, and denied basic needs such as pain relief. Stories were shared of calling for help and no one coming, of being subjected to interventions they hadn’t consented to or not being given enough information to make decisions during birth.

We know partners & maternity staff can be negatively impacted too. The report makes for upsetting reading as it includes the raw and emotional experiences of parents impacted by birth trauma. You can read the report’s key recommendations & themes here - please take care when reading and take a break if you feel overwhelmed.

Healing from birth trauma

Please know that birth trauma IS treatable and there is support out there to help you heal. Talking therapies such as EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing) and trauma focused CBT can help you process the traumatic memories so they feel less upsetting. 

Other things you may find helpful:

Grounding techniques to bring you back into the present (e.g. naming what you can see/ hear/ touch/ smell) and breathwork to calm your body when you feel triggered.

Speaking to supportive others about the birth if that feels helpful. The Birth Trauma Association and Make Birth Better offer support and resources.

Writing down your birth story (and related feelings) to help you make sense of it.

Writing a letter of complaint to your hospital.

Requesting a debriefing session to review your clinical notes with a midwife. 

Brief summary of themes and recommendations from the APPG REPORT:

Of the 1311 people who shared their story of traumatic birth, some told of stillbirth, premature birth or having a baby with cerebral palsy because they were deprived of oxygen during labour, or ending up with life-changing injuries caused by severe tearing.

They told of the impact of birth trauma: “difficulty in bonding with the baby, stress on the relationship with their partner and wider family and, often, an inability to return to work”. 

9 themes were identified:

• Failure to listen; Lack of informed consent; Poor communication; Lack of pain relief; Breastfeeding problems; Lack of kindness; Postnatal care; Impact of Covid-19; Complaints and medical negligence

Key recommendations:

• Trauma-informed care training for professionals, and to recruit, train and retain more midwives, obstetricians and anaesthetists.

• National roll out of OASI (obstetric and anal sphincter anal injury) care bundle across all NHS Trusts.

• National roll out of community-based maternal mental health services and perinatal pelvic health services.

• For GPs to offer mothers a 6-week check postpartum for their own physical and mental health - separate to the baby’s health check at the same stage.

• A commitment to tackle inequalities in maternity care for Black and Brown people, through funding for interpreter provision. It’s worth noting that the report was criticised for failing to name systemic issues, such as institutional racism, underpinning racial inequalities.

• Birth Listening services

• Support for partners

• Improved antenatal education for families

Ways to work with me

If you’re a parent struggling with anger and big feelings, I offer a unique self-paced anger course for mothers. If time is short and you need practical, evidence-based support to help you raise children with less anger and more connection, this course is for you. For all the info click here.

If you’re interested in 1:1 therapy, please click here.

To join my regular newsletter and read more on raw motherhood, proven tools for coping plus ‘Dr Boyd Loves’ for my fave books and TV shows, sign up here (scroll down to bottom of page).

For more on coping with difficult emotions, my book is packed with practical, proven tips and psychology ideas to take the heat out of mothering. Mindful New Mum: A Mind-Body Approach to the Highs & Lows of Motherhood - order your copy at Amazon, Waterstones or Bookshop.

It certainly isn’t ‘Supermum’, the idealised fantasy we internalise from our own experiences growing up and women in our culture. Supermum has us believe we’re born knowing innately how to mother – as if maternal instinct magically switches on the moment we give birth. This, of course, is a fairytale.

Mothering is a skill that we learn with practice, as we get to know our baby. Our ability to learn and grow as a mother depends on how nourished, safe, and supported we feel in our environment. We’re not designed to raise our baby in isolation as we do in Western, individualistic cultures, but rather in groups as our ancestors did.

New mothers learnt from their female elders and relatives, drawing on their wisdom and support, an approach that continues today in collectivist cultures. All new mothers need the help of ‘alloparents’ (‘allo’ means ‘other’), be they family members, friends or paid helpers, allowing them time to rest and heal away from day-to-day pressures. They also need help from someone more experienced to teach them those mothering skills. Which is why new mums often long to have their mothers nearby, even if their relationship has been fraught.

Another challenge of matrescence is experiencing the loss of freedom from our pre-baby life. This can feel really hard for some women, especially when the intensity of meeting our baby’s needs contrasts sharply with fewer opportunities to access our usual coping mechanisms (such as sleep, exercise, self-care).

We can also understand this challenge of shifting from youthhood to full on adulting as a key developmental task. Psychotherapist Lisa Marchiano describes this task of sacrificing the endless possibilities open to us hypothetically when we’re young, in order to ground ourselves in a fixed, limited adulthood. Embracing this path to maturity may not sound that appealing but it’s not without its rewards.

I believe becoming a mother presents us with a unique opportunity for radical self-growth – forcing us to confront who we really are, away from expectations imposed on us from our parents/ caregivers and society. If we experienced a critical mother or learnt to meet our mother’s emotional needs as a way to survive growing up, this shift may feel painful and destabilising. Those unconscious adaptations we learnt – say surrendering to others’ needs and learning not to voice our own – can make asserting our own individual wishes and values as a new mum incredibly hard.

This is why, in the absence of physically present supportive others and emotionally present mothers, it’s vital new mums access their own mother figures. This could be an empathic female friend, a mum friend who gets it, a caring aunt or gentle, loving grandmother. Someone who helps us feel safe enough to share our fears in this cataclysmic transition. To help us feel held, heard and understood.

In therapy, the therapist-client relationship ideally offers that – supporting someone lacking that loving, attentive care in childhood to develop a felt sense of feeling contained and cared for. In Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), a therapy approach for working with traumatic events including childhood trauma, I support clients to cultivate their own nurturing figures in the resourcing phase of treatment. This could be a mentor, supportive friend, pet, beloved animal, a wise public or spiritual figure (living or dead), or character from a film or book. I also support mums to create or strengthen their own nurturing figure through guided visualisation during my anger course.

For some their ‘kind nurturer’ may be a form of nature such as a solid oak tree or mountain. What’s key is that their chosen figure, animal or thing evokes qualities such as kindness, strength, wisdom and understanding. Thanks to the power of our negativity bias, our threat reactions get a lot of air-time - yet our brains have ALSO evolved to respond to nurturing. What this means is that ‘installing’ a felt sense of these nourishing figures allows a new mother to really strengthen her neural pathways for self-compassion – even in the absence of nurturing earlier in life.

If this blog post brings up difficult feelings for you and you need some extra support, please speak to a supportive loved one and a trusted health professional. You can also reach out to PANDAS (Helpline: 0808 1961 776) or Samaritans on 116 123.

For more information on seeking help click here.