Laura’s Story
Reading Well for families recommends helpful reading to support parents and carers to look after their wellbeing in pregnancy and the early years.
Co-production was at the heart of creating Reading Well for families. We teamed up with the Maternal Mental Health Alliance to involve a group of parents, carers, and people with lived experience of pregnancy, parenthood and mental health challenges to shape the booklist that truly reflects the needs of families.
Their voices, insights and experiences guided every step of the process — from the themes we covered and the books we included to the design of the logo.
Laura is a campaign champion with the Maternal Mental Health Alliance has lived experience of birth trauma and PTSD. Read on to hear how she thinks schemes like this can help parents.
Co-Production Process & Impact
How important is it for schemes like this to be developed with direct input from people with lived experience?
I think that there are some things in life, and perinatal mental health challenges are one of those things where you can’t fully understand them unless you’ve lived through them. Which is not to say that other types of knowledge and expertise aren’t valuable. But nonetheless, you can’t quite grasp some aspects of it unless you lived through it yourself. And so, I think it’s really important that we have different perspectives and different types of expertise come together. I see it a little bit like a jigsaw puzzle where we’re all kind of, carrying different pieces, but you can’t actually see the whole picture unless you’ve got all of the pieces, all of these different perspectives coming together, which then actually reveals the full picture.
Do you consider yourself a reader?
I’m a big reader and always have been. It’s funny, people often talk about reading as a hobby, and that’s not really how I experience it. I read every day. The only way I can think to describe it is, as the life of the mind, where we kind of have these external lives, where we are, out and about, doing things, engaging with the world, talking to other people.
And then we have these internal lives which are more private. They’re about our thoughts, feelings and our experiences. And for me, reading is integral to that life of the mind. One of the reasons that I wanted to be involved in Reading Well is because it’s been enormously helpful for me in the past when I’ve been able to see my own experiences reflected in something that I’ve read. Especially when it’s articulated in a way that I hadn’t been able to find the words for, or that I hadn’t quite been able to conceptualize or even fully understand what I was experiencing. And that sort of helps it helps you to understand your own experiences and to understand yourself.
The Importance of Reading & Resources
How do you think that reading can support parents and carers during pregnancy and the early years?
I remember as a new mum myself, I was very earnest about wanting to give my son the best possible start in life and to make the best choices for him when he was to still too little to make any choices for himself.
And there’s an awful lot of information on the internet, but the quality of that information does vary.
Also, in the early days of parenthood, you are quite often trapped under a baby that is either sleeping or feeding. That can be quite a good time for reading, because actually, how many, how many other times in our lives do we take time to sit down and stay in one place for an hour? Probably not very often.
And some people would potentially feel some guilt in taking that time to sit down and do something for themselves, but, if you have a baby on top of you, it gives you the excuse to take the time then.
What do you hope the parents and carers take away from the to the list?
I hope they take away that they are not alone. Seeing your own experiences on the pages, there’s something very validating about that. I hope that people will feel kind of seen and represented by the range of books because we’ve certainly done our best to be as inclusive as possible.
“Seeing your own experiences on the pages, there’s something very validating about that.”
Looking Ahead
What would you say to a parent or carer who is struggling but hasn’t thought about turning to books for support?
I would stress that there’s enormous variety amongst books and literature and that perhaps what they’ve encountered in the past might not be reflective of the full range of what’s out there. You know, I think it’s quite common for, some of us to be put off books and reading when we’re at school. So I would just suggest that they keep an open mind because there is a huge range out there to suit most tastes.
Explore the Reading Well for families booklist here.
Reading Well for families co-production was supported by the Maternal Mental Health Alliance.
