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Birth and Beyond

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Birth and Beyond

Counselling for Pregnancy and Parenthood, support for bonding and developing confidence.

Birth and Beyond is committed to helping mothers and fathers enjoy being parents as much as possible, and giving their baby the best start. This involves supporting parents in all aspects of the transition from pregnancy into early parenthood and beyond.

26/01/2026

Showing up reliably.

The end of last week I had to put down my work because I was so unwell, and it got me thinking about some of our fears about not being ‘available enough’.

If you’re someone who worries you might be forgotten if you don’t constantly remind people you’re there/ perform for people, it can be so hard when you become a mum and you’re not able to show up the way you normally would. Or you might even push yourself to keep trying, rather than allowing yourself the space you need to adjust, because you worry that people will forget about you otherwise. Scared that people won’t still show up.

And we can have the same fear for our babies, that if we are not 100% completely available, they will feel devastated.

So it can be really difficult to manage the feelings that might come up if you need a break. Or if you can’t be there for some reason.

Because you might imagine that they feel as scared as you do. It might be hard to imagine that their experience might be different to yours.

And that fear might mean that you push yourself to be there, even when you need a break and someone else can provide good enough care for them. Which means you’re more likely to struggle, because it’s impossible to meet your needs when you can’t have a break. It’s an awful emotional predicament.

Whilst having a sense of our baby’s internal world is vital, if we’re projecting our own feelings on to them, it can leave us in some very difficult positions.

If you’ve got someone who can help you tease out your fears, and step back a little, that’s invaluable. They might be a friend, a family member, a health professional, a therapist - whoever has a good enough relationship with you and the ability to see how hard it is for you.

Because of course you’re terrified of your baby feeling like you do at times. It’s awful. So having someone who understands that you’re not being a martyr because it makes you feel good, but because you’re trying to escape these fears.

16/01/2026

Giving birth, like starting school, can raise all sorts of anxieties. There are so many unknowns, new experiences and people.

So what if we thought about our needs approaching birth the same way we think about the needs of kids starting school?

My thoughts are in my latest substack post - link at the top. 👆

12/01/2026

Gentle note - this post talks about suicidal thoughts.

I still remember the feeling of my first bike ride after my son was born. It was flipping magic. It was the first time I had felt like myself since becoming a mum.

And one of the feelings that we maybe don’t expect to have as a new mum is feeling trapped. But it is such a common feeling: feeling as though we have made an awful mistake and there is no way back, and having no hope for the way forward. It’s a lonely, desperate place - and at really bad times it might that there is only one way to escape these awful feelings.

I’m often asked if there is hope. If things can change. And the answer is unequivocally YES. It might take time, and it will take some support from other people (friends, family and professionals). But I have seen it happen, so I know it’s possible.

If you’re feeling trapped - I’m so sorry. It is an awful place to be. And please - get some help.

(I’d start with your GP or Health Visitor, but also from friends and family. There are online groups and private counsellors🙋🏻‍♀️. And in the worst case scenario, call 111 or go to A&E.)

09/01/2026

This is one of those posts that doesn’t really say anything new, but it’s a message that always bears repeating.

YOU ARE NOT AS S**T A PARENT AS YOU THINK YOU ARE.

Did you hear that at the back?

Obviously that’s miles easier to say than to believe, which is why I’ve put some of my thoughts in my substack post. You can find the link above…

And if you’re looking for psychotherapy or relationship counselling, I currently have two sessions available on a Wednesday and Thursday. Message me if you want to have a brief chat.

05/01/2026

What to do when you don’t know what to do?

I get it - the anxiety or terror can make you want to act, to move, to do something quickly. But sometimes doing nothing apart from just getting through each hour is maybe enough. It is maybe as much as you can do just now.

01/01/2026

Hello 2026…

I wish I had some wise words or inspiring words to share, but the best I can offer is hope.

Hope that this might be a year of emergence - that you can learn even more about the complexity (and craziness!) inside yourself and be ok with that, without judgement or shame.

Hope that you can trust that you already have what you need inside yourself, even if you don’t feel like it.

And if you need someone else to hold that hope for you, when you can’t find it yourself - I hope that you find that person/ those people.

#2026

19/12/2025

Our un-recognised beliefs can really trip us up when we become parents. Our heads can be full of ‘shoulds’ and the idea that it will mean something about us if we don’t want to do those things, or they’re not right for us. And we don’t even know where those thoughts come from.

Today’s email is all about that - link in the usual place…

15/12/2025

Time is so precious. And feels like it’s in even shorter supply at Christmas.

My brother came up to Edinburgh to see me this morning. He’s so busy, he has loads of other things to do, but he prioritised our time together. It meant a lot.

And in all this busy-ness - more so when kids are involved - making time is so much harder. There are so many decisions to make.

So having an idea what matters to you, an overarching goal for Christmas, might help clarify how to manage some of those decisions, and the mixture of feelings that will come with them. All will involve costs as well as gains.

Do you want more rest?
Do you want more space to move?
Do you want more connection?
Do you want more fun?

Having one overarching goal in mind can help look at all these decisions with an idea of whether it gets you closer to having a bit more of that this Christmas. And might help you manage the difficult feelings around what those decisions might also cost.

11/12/2025

How are you with concern?

Are you able to take it kn, or does it feel scary or annoying?

It can be easy not to be concerned for ourselves, so when other express it we can want to reject it or push it away somehow.

Especially when we are busy, it can be easier to find other people’s concern. To feel like they’re pushing anxiety on to us when maybe they’re just expressing compassionate curiosity towards your own anxieties.

I’d be really interested to know - how do you manage others’ concern?

10/12/2025

Feeling confused and all at sea?

Well done. That can be hard to admit.

We can have this idea that being certain and in control is how we’re meant to be, especially as adults. But it’s not always so, and especially when you’ve just had a baby.

We fight confusion, because certainty is such a seductive idea. The idea that we should just KNOW what to do. And sometimes we just can’t know, we just hope.

And when everyone else has ideas of what we should do or how we should be, it’s kind but sometimes unhelpful. It doesn’t always relieve the confusion.

Sometimes all you can do is just keep trying to figure out what your best looks like in this moment. Whether or not other people understand or approve. And that’s really hard.

09/12/2025

We can lose sight of what we might really want at Christmas (and all year round actually, but it seems to feel especially urgent at this time of year).

Yet it can often feel like one of the hardest things to get.

Here are some of my thoughts - you might have others, and if so I’d love it if you dropped them below or DM’d me. And if you want more of my thoughts, you can always check out my substack ‘Am I a bad mum if…’

08/12/2025

Christmas brings up a lot. And it might not all feel the way you want it to.

Add a baby or kids into that mix and there’s a whole lot more going on there.

That dissonance can bring up a whole load of feelings in itself - shame, guilt, grief, resentment…

But getting some insight into how you feel and naming it, even to yourself, means that maybe you can just allow these feelings to be ok.

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18 Pittville Street
Edinburgh
EH152BY

Opening Hours

Tuesday	9am - 9:30pm
Wednesday	9am - 4:30pm
Thursday	9am - 9:30pm
Friday	9am - 3:30pm

Website

http://www.birthandbeyond.com/

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Our Story

Many people think of postnatal depression, when they think of mums and mental health issues, but there are so many other forms of mental distress that parents can experience, and so even if you don’t think you have depression, it’s always worth trying to get support to feel better.

I have a background in psychological and social research, so when I experienced both Postnatal Depression and Anxiety after the birth of my first child, I became fascinated with why that had happened to me and what could be done to prevent it happen. I became a counsellor in order to support other women to recover quicker, and also to raise awareness about what can cause mental health issues in the first place.

I firmly believe that people are always operating to the best of their ability, so if there is something preventing you from being the mum that you want to be, it’s not through lack of trying, it’s because something has happened that stops you from being able to be different just yet. Counselling provides a way of exploring why that might be, and therefore helps you create more choices for yourself as you see things differently.