You may have read in the media recently about women with postnatal depression experiencing a significant reduction in symptoms and increase in mental wellbeing. The effect was after involvement in a 10 week signing group activity, whereby the control group were also women with postnatal depression involved in an existing mother-baby activity. The difference was the singing, but why?
Postnatal depression can stop you feeling heard or seen.
When we have a baby, we can feel like we have lost our voice. The people around us can seem to assume that we are doing fine, that we are finding contentment and joy in our new identity as a mum. If we have been a mum before, it is assumed that we know what to do and that this is even more instinctive and second-nature than the time before. Neither of these assumptions are true for any new mum, we all have our own challenges, but it feels socially unacceptable to voice these. It becomes acceptable through singing to have a voice that is heard. Our emotions can be expressed in a safe way without the need for personal words.
Our “I am failing as a mum” voice is at top volume when we are suffering from postnatal depression.
Our confirmation bias means our radar is focussed to only pick up what doesn’t go right. When you are among other women who are singing as a collective. You are part of the success within the group. The sense of achievement and mastery can be immense. The powerful experiencing that group singing can provide is a recognition that “I can” in a new baby world when it feels like everything we are doing is wrong (Spoiler..It isn’t, you are doing fine!)
In postnatal depression, it can be difficult to embody a sense of safety
Our exhaustion tiredness and overwhelm can cause us to shut down, to ‘freeze’ and become disconnected. If our nervous system perceives we are in an unsafe place, it can feel threatening to even feel what we feel. Singing is an embodied process that involves breathing, movement and connection with all the different parts of you. It allows you to build trust in a body that has recently given birth even if that confidence has been shaken.
We can feel we are not safe to connect to others with postnatal depression
Reaching out feels impossible if we feel we are alone in our suffering. Other mums seem to be coping well-on the street, even in mother and baby groups. In the context of a singing group where all the participants understand what it is like to have postnatal depression. Feeling understood and the sense of safety that this provides allows our social engagement system, including our facial expressions and eyes, to well and truly be switched on.
In postnatal depression, we can question if we deserve to be a mother
Our sense of imposter syndrome comes from a place where we feel out of rhythm with what we expected motherhood to be. We can feel out of rhythm with ourselves as an individual. When we reach the joy of resonance and rhythm of singing with others, it allows reciprocity with fellow human beings. This releases the social hormone of oxytocin in our body which banishes stress and helps us be in rhythm internally also.
Even if you cannot find a singing group locally, sing with your baby even a running commentary of what you are doing. It may feel boring to you when you sing the words “I am putting on the washing”, but to your baby it is magic. Their reaction is your connection together.
