We are part of a growing global movement that is reclaiming the postpartum time for women, helping to change the dominant narrative and recognizing postpartum as a time for reverence, rest, nourishment and healing, after the work of pregnancy and birthing our babies. This sacred rite of passage is not a time for ‘bouncing back’. The immediate postpartum period is a short, and yet wondrously and exhaustingly intense and transformative season of motherhood, where the foundations of your healing and your relationship with your child can be firmly set, ready for the growth that is to come.

In Westernized cultures we have largely lost our nurturing postpartum traditions where the health and wellness of the mother is centered – this causes needless suffering both in the short-and long-term. Now is the time for radical acts of self-responsibility. A time to create the communities that we crave, to strengthen our existing support networks and to re-connect to ourselves and what is right and true for us and our families.

In the context of the work of the Tomorrow House in planning for the postpartum, we focus on the first 6 weeks, whilst also remembering that once we have been pregnant, we will always be postpartum and so our work also honours this. Closing of the Bones, birth story listening, and mother’s circles are relevant to any season of postpartum, whether you are 6 weeks or 60 years post-birth, or post-pregnancy loss.