Establishing a Postpartum Support Plan and Team
This blog post was written by Dr. Jan Ooi, a Family Physician and Low Risk Obstetrics Provider. (7 min read)
While Dr. Ooi’s expertise lies in providing care during pregnancy, labour and delivery, she developed the postpartum group support programs at Ensemble to fill a gap that she saw in the support options available to her patients after baby is born. She recognized that new parents often have many questions and unanticipated challenges, and she used her experience delivering prenatal education in a group setting to develop physician-led postpartum programs that provide a safe place for new parents to learn and build community. Click here to learn more about our programs and register.
As a new parent, you walk out the front doors of the hospital, nervously drive your newborn home, and embark on the journey of caring for your baby 24/7. Those initial postpartum days and weeks are a wild ride! Adjusting to caring for a newborn, while filled with moments of joy and peace, can be stressful, overwhelming and downright upsetting.
WHY YOU NEED A POSTPARTUM SUPPORT PLAN
It’s hard to anticipate how you will be feeling and what your needs will be. Consider that:
Mom’s body is healing from labour and delivery
Parents, potentially exhausted from a long labour, start accumulating a sleep debt as the days go by
Questions and challenges are constant, no matter how much you’ve prepared
Establishing a postpartum support plan and team before you give birth will help you avoid added stress if anything doesn't go as planned.
THINGS TO CONSIDER WHEN BUILDING YOUR PLAN
Who?
Your inner circle: Consider which friends, family members, caregivers and organizations will be better suited to help in one or a few of these areas:
newborn support
household support
emotional support
advice and education
Outside support: You might need support beyond your circle of friends and family, depending on the extent of your support network and the challenges that arise during the postpartum/newborn period.
What?
Feeding and Sleep: These are the two biggest challenges new parents face.
When, Where and How?
Accessibility: Parenting is 24/7, and the right support will hold similar hours!
Convenience: It can be difficult to get out of the house with a newborn. In-home or virtual care can be very helpful for stressed out parents.
THINKING ABOUT ‘WHO’ WILL HELP YOU - BUILDING YOUR TEAM
How Friends and Family Can Support You
Things to consider when you’re seeking help from loved ones:
Who will be helpful (and who will be less so): Certain people may be more supportive with newborn care, while others feel more comfortable expressing their love for you by providing household support. Remember that they may surprise you (in either direction).
Labels and expectations: Family members may expect to have a certain level of involvement and if this causes you more stress than relief consider how you can set appropriate boundaries. Conversely, you may wish that someone be more involved and supportive than they prove to be - consider strategies to ask for the help you need, and/or adjust your expectations of that person.
Advice and education: While their intentions are usually good, this advice may come whether you solicit it or not. As you receive this information, consider how reliable it is, as it will be shaped by their past experiences, and any formal education or training.
Whether your current friends are new parents, or you make ones who are, it is invaluable to lean on peer support during your parenthood journey. Caring for a newborn can be a very isolating time - your daily routines are disrupted, and getting out of the house can feel very daunting. Talking with others who are going through similar experiences and challenges can help you by:
decreasing loneliness
providing you with a safe place to share your victories and frustrations, and express your feelings and fears
allowing you to learn from other’s experiences, while also supporting others and sharing your knowledge
Click here to read more about the benefits of group support in our blog post. Research ways to meet and connect with other new families in your community. Bonding over parenthood often provides the foundation for years-long relationships for both parents and their children.
How Professionals Can Support You
Your care providers can be a mix of practitioners that you developed a relationship with during pregnancy, and others who will join your team after your baby is born.
The maternity care provider who took care of you during your pregnancy, whether they are a physician or midwife, will provide postpartum care. They will plan your postpartum visits with you and provide information on who to call when questions arise. Maternity care providers will also provide newborn care for the first few weeks of life. Your baby will require frequent follow-ups at first, so take the time during pregnancy to arrange for a newborn care provider. This could be a family physician or a pediatrician who will assume care of your baby when you are discharged from the care of your maternity physician or midwife.
THINKING ABOUT ‘WHAT’ YOU WILL NEED HELP WITH
Breastfeeding Support in Calgary
Newborn feeding, particularly breastfeeding, is often challenging in the first few weeks and months. It’s helpful to be aware of what supports are available, and how to access them.
In hospital: If you deliver in a hospital in Calgary, all of the postpartum units have lactation consultants on staff who can assess and support you.
After discharge: You will be contacted by a public health nurse, and a follow-up visit will be arranged within 48 hours of arriving home. The public health nurse will assess feeding and lactation, and provide referrals and recommendations for further support as needed.
In the community: Calgary and area residents are lucky to have a number of highly trained and experienced family physicians who provide lactation support. Some require a referral, while others do not, and all provide services that are covered by Alberta Health Care. In the community there are many professionals, often doulas and nurses, offering breastfeeding education and lactation consultation.
Sleep and Mental Health Support
Support for sleep challenges is also important. Even when a newborn follows a normal pattern for their age, parents will still accumulate a sleep debt waking to provide nighttime feedings and care. While medical care providers will offer support and answer questions, it can be helpful to enlist the help of an infant sleep consultant, who can provide more in-depth education, and individualized advice.
It can be stressful to navigate the changes in your relationships with friends and family in the postpartum period. A counsellor, such as a psychologist or a clinical social worker, can help you during pregnancy and the postpartum period to consider the relationships that you have with people in your life. They can:
guide you through processing the effects of past experiences on your current relationships
teach you about communication styles, and help you consider your own as well as those of your loved ones, and
help you to determine expectations (both your own and those of your loved ones), and prepare you to set (and maintain) appropriate boundaries
While services provided by doulas, nurses, sleep consultants, psychologists and clinical social workers are not covered by Alberta Health Care, the costs of these services can often be reimbursed by insurance benefits, and some practitioners offer sliding scale pricing for patients who do not have insurance coverage.
CONSIDERING ‘HOW’ YOU WILL ACCESS SUPPORT
Getting the Most out of Online Resources
You are reading this post so you are already aware of the availability of online resources! The benefits of online help include:
The content is accessible any time of day or night
There are many free options
The content often includes videos and photos, which are excellent tools for learning
There’s a good chance that this is not the only post or website that you are reading, so you are likely also aware of the pitfalls of online help:
The advice and information is not individualized
The content is not regulated so it is very important to ensure the credibility of all sources
The sheer volume and sometimes conflicting advice can be overwhelming
With this in mind, there are many great online resources that can be an important part of your postpartum support system. A few of our favourites are listed on our Resources page , and a great step-by-step blog post entitled ‘A guide to the first three days with your newborn’ was written by our friends at Welcome Baby Co.
THE NEWBORN SUPPORT PROGRAM AT ENSEMBLE AS PART OF YOUR POSTPARTUM PLAN
With all of the above points in mind we designed the Newborn Support Program at Ensemble to provide:
Expert advice from a team of highly trained professionals who specialize in postpartum care, including: family physician lactation consultants, nurse lactation consultants, and a nurse infant sleep consultant.
Accessible help, with weekly meet-ups focused on infant feeding. Families can join any time in the first month of their baby’s life, and the curriculum rotates every 4 weeks so that all participants will receive the same content regardless of which week they join.
Convenient access to infant sleep education and advice from our nurse sleep consultant through virtual sessions every other week that you can attend (in your pyjamas!) from home.
The opportunity to meet other new parents in a safe environment where you can learn from and with each other, and build new friendships and community.
A comprehensive curriculum that covers key information that we want all parents to know, delivered at a pace that allows new parents to absorb the information, and ensures that their questions are answered.
We know how challenging the first few weeks of parenthood can be, and we want to be a part of the support system that will help your family to thrive!
