PERINATAL COUNSELLING SERVICES
WHAT IS PERINATAL COUNSELLING?
Most people have heard of terms pre natal and post natal, which covers before birth and after. The term perinatal covers the time from planning your pregnancy, right through until your childs first birthday and all of the thoughts, feelings and emotions that we experience druing this time.
Perinatal counselling is available to couples or singles and understands that planning a pregnancy, giving birth, and adjusting to life with a new family member are all significant life milestones.
Prenatal Support and Counselling
As we move into the excitement and bliss of falling pregnant and announcing a new arrival to our family and friends, we can also be experiencing fears and anxiety surrounding being pregnant and giving birth, this is common and perfectly ok! Support is available from planning to conceive, no matter what path this looks like for you. There are many roads we can take in preparing to bring a baby into our lives, and sometimes the road we always thought we would take, doesn’t end up being the same road we thought we would be on.
Support is available to you during this process as we navigate unexpected territory and share our concerns in a safe and non judgemental environment. You may be unsure of what to expect, you may be experiencing feelings of ambivalence about the pregnancy or becoming a parent, we can cover fears and anxieties, coping with challenges or change, or feelings of unmet expectations.
Postnatal support and counselling
The days and months following birth can also be challenging, low levels of sleep, low levels of support, feelings of failure or uncertainty in your abilities. We may feel we are expected to be enjpying this experience though we may not be feeling this way. We may need support to balance our lives with a newborn, we may need support to shift into a new identity. We may have experienced unmet expectations from the birthing experience, feelings of loss of control during birth or feelings of isolation.
After we leave the hospital system we can often feel as though we need to speak to someone but don’t know where to turn to for help and support. There may also be feelings of failure in seeking support which is very common. Private support is available to you.
Perinatal Grief and Loss Counselling
Sometimes in life things just simply don’t go as planned. Perinatal loss involves the loss of a baby, up to 1 month after birth, also the loss of eggs and embryos in assisted reproduction. Through pregnancy we cover miscarriage, ectopic pregnancy, blighted ovum, molar pregnancy, fetal death in utero, medical terminations. Through birth we cover complications of birth and stillbirth. Perinatal grief and loss counselling is available to you, face to face if possible, or via telehealth if you are having trouble leaving the house or are a distance away from Camden.
Perinatal grief counselling understands the significant losses, the unrecognised or disenfranchised grief we experience, and not only the primary but also the secondary losses we experience during this process.
As a counsellor with a focus not only on perinatal counselling, but also on grief and loss counselling, I am available to support those who may have experienced pregnancy or fertility loss many years ago and are finding their grief is coming to the surface now that time has passed or events have occurred in their lives which have raised unresolved grief. I am also available as a grief and loss counsellor, to help you move through losses that can be experienced after the perinatal period (planning conception to 1 year post partum) has ended. Some women may be told they need a hysterectomy for example, or some women may experience the loss of a child after 12 months.
Pregnancy Support
If you are unsure of whether perinatal, prenatal or postnatal counselling is for you, or if grief and loss counselling is for you, please feel free to send an email or schedule a 15 minute call to talk more about your needs and how I can support you through Contact Me.
You can also contact PANDA or The Gidget Foundation out of hours.
Thank you as always, simply for being here,
Karen 🙂