Loneliness and the new mum

Kirsty Bowen - 29 Nov 18

It’s hit the news today that new mothers can find maternity leave isolating with 47% feeling more lonely than they thought they would in the early days of parenthood.

This isn’t a surprise for me. There’s been a lot of talk about the rising sense of loneliness felt by many people in society, especially amongst the elderly but I haven’t heard anything about how isolated new mums can feel.

New mothers and the elderly can have a lot in common – they often spend the majority of the day without another adult person to chat to.

Unfortunately it’s still rare for parents to share leave, whether spending time together to care for the baby, or to take turns in parental leave. Most of the time, the responsibility falls to the mother.

This was a responsibility I was happy to take when I went on maternity leave. I didn’t expect to feel lonely – I thought I would be able to fill my days with meeting friends with other babies for coffee, as well as enjoying the company my new bundle of joy would bring.

Although I did socialise, I still spent the majority of the day with just my baby who could only sleep, eat and cry at first.

Some mornings, I would feel incredibly overwhelmed with the long day stretching out ahead of me, wondering how I was going to cope until my partner finished work.

But the nights were the worst. I felt so lonely up in the middle of the night with a hungry baby that I relied on my mobile phone for company. After spending hours checking Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, some nights I was sure I had run out of things to read on the internet. Sometimes mum friends were awake and we could chat, or I would download game apps that I never used to play in my previous life.

I didn’t resent my partner for not being able to feed my son at night or being able to leave in the morning and go to work, but I did feel jealous sometimes and wished I could walk away for a few hours.

I think a big problem is that today’s society is not centred around the home, it’s centred around the workplace. British people spend an average of 42 hours a week at work and we often see more of our co-workers than our family.

More women are enjoying fulfilling careers and miss work when they are on leave. Friends at work are often a big part of our social lives and so being removed from the workplace can mean new mums miss out on the friendships they’ve previously enjoyed.

More and more people don’t live close to their families either so there is little everyday support and there isn’t the chance to have a break away from changing nappies and washing bottles.

Earlier this year, the government published a strategy which suggested ways to tackle loneliness through ‘social prescribing’ help through sports, hobbies and community groups.

This could help new mums too. Baby groups run by volunteers in church halls and community centres up and down the country are lifelines to parents and more could be done to support and expand them.

I think there should be more conversations around the issue of loneliness in society, especially about how it can affect new parents. New mums need to be identified as being at risk of feeling lonely and support services should be signposted in the way they are for other mental health issues like Postnatal Depression.

Being a new mum was an amazing time but sometimes very hard. I am extremely thankful that I had the opportunity to spend eleven months with my son but occasionally it was tiring and boring. I think it’s ok to say maternity leave isn’t all fun and hopefully then we can share realistic expectations of a really important time in our lives.

Kirsty Bowen

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