Birth & Baby Ep. 71 – The Good Enough Mother

Welcome and thank you for listening!

In this episode, Dr. Margreet chatted with Claire Bracher about ‘The Good Enough Mother’. 

Claire Bracher has practiced as a midwife for 35 years and over this time her passion for her chosen field has broadened and deepened. She has looked at midwifery from every angle - working in labour wards, running antenatal and postnatal practices and lecturing and conducting research in midwifery at Wits University.

Claire is an International Board Certified Lactation Consultant, Certified Infant Massage Instructor and has a certification in integral life coaching from UCT.

Through The Good Enough Mother Connection, she brings all her experience and skills together to provide new parents with a platform to navigate the new and demanding world of parenthood.

Claire became aware that although there is a lot of parenting information available much of it applies a rose-tinted lens, that veers towards an image of the instinctually together unflappable mother, failing to acknowledge the dark gritty and sometimes lonely side of being a new mother.

This unrealistic image falls against the backdrop of alarmingly high levels of anxiety and depression that are seen across the population, and only serves to prove to the vulnerable new mother that she is falling far from the desired image of perfection that society has depicted for her.

Claire uses a model of resilience to help new parents make sense of their pregnancy and birth journey and then to move forward and navigate their new landscape and set their own realistic, achievable goals for parenthood, thus avoiding the feeling of shame that comes with failure. This is achieved through therapeutic dialogue in group or individual sessions, infant massage and a holistic approach to lactation care.

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