Parenting: Rural mums offered help with mental health

Motherhood is often considered one of the most beautiful experiences in life, yet many mothers find it lonely.

When Bethanie Casey gave birth to her children, she couldn’t understand why she was doing so poorly.

Mrs Casey lived in Norton, Powys and suffered from postnatal depression after both pregnancies.

She is one of several women who have benefited from an intervention service run by the charity Mind for mothers with mental health problems.

Warning: The article contains references to suicide

Ms Casey, 28, said she “had this realization one day: Why was I feeling so down? why was i so tired Why did I feel so alone?”

She had “no family or friends around” and her partner worked 65 hours a week.

A health counselor suggested she enroll in a course called Mums Matter.

It was set up by Tracy Lewis, who works for Mind, after she saw a great need to help mothers dealing with isolation and loneliness in rural Wales.

The course lasts eight weeks and each week focuses on a different topic.

Ms Lewis said: “I think that’s really tough [week] Usually there are three, namely the unhelpful thinking patterns and if we look at strategies for why they have unhelpful thinking, how we can break the unhelpful thinking.”

The charity said the project has helped more than 400 mothers, who can either get referred themselves or get a referral if they are over 18.

Parallel to the course, several mothers volunteered to start a peer support group.

“I just felt so safe and embraced there, and it was a place where I could honestly express what I was feeling — the loneliness, the guilt, the intrusive thoughts — and nobody was judging me,” Ms Casey said.

She said her “life changed” because she realized she wasn’t alone.

“I used to be stuck in these negative patterns and cycles and couldn’t get out of this hole. Now someone gives me a ladder and takes me straight out.”

Mum-of-three Becca Hughes, 29, of Builth Wells, also took the course.

Mrs Hughes had a baby with a new partner, who then passed away unexpectedly.

She said that raising her children alone during grief “takes a tremendous toll on my mental state.”

“Life became so difficult in the years that followed that I tried to take my own life,” she said.

Ms Hughes, who has Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and autism, said she found “some social situations quite difficult” but felt she “fitted in” to the group like other mother- Child groups was not the case.

“I used to think I was crazy for thinking something like that, and then I went there and somebody said it and I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’m not crazy,'” she said.

“It changed my life,” she added, especially the week she learned “to deal with negative thoughts and pressure.”

Wilna Evans, 31, moved to Wales with her family from South Africa when she was a child.

She later met and married her husband Geraint and stayed with him when the rest of her family returned to South Africa in 2015.

“As a farmer you can be lonely even at the best of times, let alone when the whole family is boarding a plane back to South Africa. I felt like I didn’t have anyone,” Ms Evans said.

“My husband takes care of 2,000 sheep and 100 cattle alone. It’s a seven-day-a-week job, and when I had my first daughter in 2019, I didn’t have any help at all.”

“I was in a lot of anger and frustration, I didn’t know why I was getting so angry about everything.”

Ms Evans said she “survived, not thrived” and felt “incredibly lonely”.

She enrolled in the course, which she says helped her figure out how to deal with motherhood and maintain her own identity.

Now the children stay with their father on the farm twice a week while she takes time for herself and works in the community farm shop.

“I now feel like part of a community, like-minded women, we can all call each other whenever we want,” she said.

Namrata Bhardwa, 29, Life in rural Wales with a newborn was difficult for her too.

She grew up in Coventry, which had “really strong Asian communities and a lot of influence” before moving to Rhayader, Powys, where “the nearest temple is two hours away”.

She took part in the project and found that it helped her “explore all sorts of often taboo topics related to motherhood, from mental health to postpartum sex, in a completely unbiased and often lighthearted way.”

Mind Cymru’s Simon Jones said up to one in four mothers experience mental health issues during pregnancy.

He said a recent report by the Maternal Mental Health Alliance showed that all seven Welsh health boards had increased their budgets for perinatal mental health services.

“Obviously good work is underway, but there are still issues of under-budgeting and not meeting standards, and more work needs to be done by health officials to ensure every woman in Wales has equal access to good quality , more accessible care.”” he said.

Deputy Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing Lynne Neagle said having a baby “can be a challenging time both mentally and physically” but said the project was “a fantastic example” of early intervention.

For details of organizations offering advice and support, go to BBC Action Line.