Before I expanded my services to more people,  I wanted to find out whether more emotional support was needed by parents of babies, what form that should take and what areas they needed support with,  so I  conducted some research in this area. A total  of 80 parents and 17 practitioners took part. Below is a summary of the findings:

• 86% of mothers felt that having a baby affected their emotional wellbeing with the main cause stated by both mothers and practitioners as being lack of sleep.
• 75% of mothers said that ‘how they felt about themselves’ was most affected by the reduction in their emotional wellbeing.
• 47% of mothers and 41% of practitioners felt that even though some emotional support rather than practical advice around caring for the needs of their babies was available it would have been helpful to have more.