Unrealistic Expectations of Motherhood Artwork

Perinatal Wellbeing - The Podcast about Prenatal, Pregnancy & Postpartum Health

Let's talk about Prenatal, Pregnancy and Postpartum health! This podcast is all about authentic conversations centred on Perinatal health and wellbeing; from mood and anxiety disorders, to breastfeeding challenges, to grief and loss in the Perinatal period and literally everything in between! This is the place to have real and honest conversations about these experiences so we can break down barriers to accessing treatment and crush stigma! I open these conversations up by sharing my knowledge as a Certified Perinatal Mental Health Professional, interviewing others with lived experience and talking with colleagues who also work in the Perinatal field supporting clients and sharing their wisdom. You will walk away with more knowledge and understanding of the Perinatal period and ideas for coping with the many challenges that can come up in this period. You are not alone and there is a community of support waiting for you! For more information about Perinatal Wellbeing visit our website www.perinatalwellbeing.ca. If you want to submit a question to be answered on a future podcast please email me at info@perinatalwellbeing.ca.

All Episodes

Perinatal Wellbeing - The Podcast about Prenatal, Pregnancy & Postpartum Health

Unrealistic Expectations of Motherhood

April 20, 2022 • Christine Cunningham • Season 1 • Episode 14

Send us a text

Content Warning: Mention of birth trauma, baby blues, obstetric violence, NICU, some swearing, gendered language.

Today’s Guest is Kelley Hassanpour, RN who is the Founder over at Parenting From Within and we are talking about the unrealistic expectations of motherhood. We covered a wide range of topics from gendered stereotypes to patriarchy’s impact on motherhood and the systems that we birth in to integrating our mom parts. We could do a separate episode on each of these topics, so this is really just to get the conversation going!

Highlights:

3:30 – Perfect Mommy Myth “Being a good mom” “mom as martyr”

7:55 - Integrating mom parts

9:20 – Taking care of ourselves last

10:00 - Expectations around birth and postpartum that you should experience pain, discomfort “suck it up”

13:05 – Patriarchy and gender stereotypes and their impact on our health care

14:24 – Losing our dignity in birth, birth-trauma, obstetric violence

16:50 - Trauma-informed care as the standard

19:08 - Myth of natural motherhood

21:35 – Shame

34:47 – Mental Load of motherhood

38:14 - Gender roles and division of labour