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

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.

04/12/2025

One of the unspoken chores at Christmas is managing everyone’s feelings.

Maybe the relatives who would be disappointed not see you. Maybe the friends who are stressed and need a bit of support. Maybe the parents who are feeling anxious about managing everything.

It’s a lot of extra work, especially when you’re a mum and you’re already managing your own child’s feelings (and yours!).

Now this maybe isn’t the time to start setting limits and hard boundaries that you never have before, unless you fancy a bit of drama. But maybe you could take a bit off your plate by figuring out slightly different ways of managing these feelings that don’t involve quite so much effort…

If you’d like more of my thoughts, come join me on substack - the link is in my bio…

03/12/2025

It’s the most wonderful time of the year… Well, maybe. But the stress before it is real.

One of the things I’m hearing most about in the therapy room at the moment is the disconnect between partners, and the resentment and upset that’s causing.

Trying to have big relationship discussions whilst you’re stressed is often a bad idea. You’re not in a state to talk calmly and kindly.

But there maybe are ways your partner can support you, even if they don’t ‘get it’… and maybe that can be enough until you’re both past this period.

[And if you don’t have a partner, there maybe other people/ animals who you can look to for some support for your nervous system.]

02/12/2025

Before kids, we can have the illusion that we can do it all, regardless of the cost to our nervous systems and possibly our relationships. After kids, that illusion is harder to maintain.

And that can be really painful at Christmas, when there are so many things we want to do. So many people to catch up with. So many enticing activities.

It’s really disappointing and frustrating to either a) try to do everything and end up burnt out/ resentful/ ill or b) to let things go and feel the fomo / fear of other people’s disapproval or disappointment (or whatever you’re scared others will feel if you don’t perform).

So it’s hard either way. And you will make the best decision for you right now, as long as you think about it. ❤️

01/12/2025

Being a parent can be bloody scary, and not just for all the immediately obvious reasons.

We don’t always think about how we bring our older fears, the fear that our child might suffer something we did, the fear that our child might experience disappointment or loss or loneliness or pain. These fears, unless we look at them, can subtly shape our interactions with our babies, even from birth.

We can worry about the impacts of all our choices to such an extent that we feel we have to get everything ‘right’ or else they will be ‘damaged’ in some way by us. That - even worse - they might hold us responsible for some future adversity in their life.

There are often very understandable reasons for these fears, when we explore them further. And it can be a relief to be able to let yourself off the hook, stop trying to ‘be’ something and realise that you offer your child something rather wonderful - yourself.

I’ll be trying to post something every day until Christmas, some gentle reminders of how much your baby just needs enough connection rather than anything else.

25/11/2025

I’m not against AI - in fact my first degree was AI and psychology - but I think that we can use it in the wrong ways.

Trying to use AI as our therapist, or even worse, as our friend, misses some of the most important aspects of being in an embodied relationship with a being with a nervous system.

And ok, there are some bad therapists out there, and not every therapist will be right for you. But the right relationship can be quietly transformative.

I have availability for one new client, on a Wednesday or Thursday. If you’d like a brief chat to see if we might be a good fit, email me at sarah@birthandbeyond.com

24/11/2025

It’s awful when we feel lost, especially when people around us seem to feel that we shouldn’t.

But it’s really normal, especially in motherhood, when so much is shifting for us, both internally and externally.

If you’d like some support with this, I currently have availability for two new clients, on a Wednesday and Thursday. Please get in touch at sarah@birthandbeyond.com and we can have a brief chat on the phone to see if that might be a good fit for what you need.

20/11/2025

Becoming a mother potentially involves so many different kinds of humiliation, big and small. And considering how hard most of us try to avoid feeling that 🙋🏻‍♀️ that can feel even worse when we’re already feeling a bit destabilised and vulnerable.

Trying to avoid it can lead to anxiety, so what to do about it?

Well, strangely enough, I’ve just written a post about that - find the link up top or message me and I’ll send it to you.

17/11/2025

There are so many competing opinions about how to be a mother, especially in the early stages. And if you’re used to doing what you’ve been told is the ‘right’ thing, that can be utterly bamboozling and confusing, because there is NO right way. There is only your way, with your baby and you and your family.

So it can be really hard to think for yourself. And sometimes it’s only when someone asks good questions that you can start to gently figure it out for yourself…

14/11/2025

One of the hardest things to talk about is when you feel terrified of your baby. When being alone with them makes you feel panicky. When you don’t feel you can cope without other people around.

Often these feelings come from a different time, from a different set of experiences. It’s not really that you can’t be with your baby - it’s about the old feelings evoked, and you might not even know where they come from (yet).

It’s an awful, awful feeling. And finding someone who can understand is one of the most helpful things.

And if this is you, please don’t think there’s something wrong with you. You’re going through something you don’t yet understand…

10/11/2025

Do you find that your need to keep everything clean/tidy, your baby on a tight schedule, everything kept a certain way when your baby is sleeping is causing you a lot of stress and possibly arguments with people around you?

It might be that you need these things to be a certain way, otherwise there is a sense that something will go wrong.

In psychodynamic thinking, we all use psychological‘defence mechanisms’ to help us manage difficult feelings. And that’s actually normal and can be healthy UNLESS we find it is causing ruptures to our relationships, including with our baby.

That’s when it might be worth thinking about what difficult feelings you might be wanting to avoid. And might there be a different way of managing them?

03/11/2025

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

When things feel stuck, or unfixable?

When your baby isn’t doing what you want? When your partner isn’t getting it? When your support isn’t supporting you the way you’d hoped?

Address

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.