‘Hit me hard’: Move that left new mum Stephanie ‘spiralling’

When I brought my newborn son home from the hospital in 2019, getting the hang of breastfeeding was hard.
I’d heard of women having low milk supply, but what I didn’t expect was to have an oversupply. My breasts were engorged, and for poor little Elliot, every feed was like drinking out of a bloody fire hose. 
We were both upset, frustrated, and saturated; so I called a lactation consultant. 24 hours later, she was sitting next to me on my couch with her hand around my nipple, helping me get a grasp on it all. She was incredible. 
My son was an extremely colicky baby. He’d scream for hours and hours at a time, and for months he woke up every 45 minutes throughout the night without fail. To say I was sleep deprived would be the understatement of the century.
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Things got so bad that my mother-in-law paid for a night nanny to come once a week to give my husband and I some reprieve. I’d express, go to sleep, and this saint of a woman stayed and did the 3am bottle feed.
During this time, while also secretly struggling with postnatal depression, I got a referral to Tweddle, a residential sleep school that was 10 minutes from our home. I stayed there for four nights at no cost, and managed to claw back some sleep and some sanity thanks to the wonderful nurses there. I returned home feeling more confident and more supported.  
I was able to access all the above services because for the first six months of my son’s life, I lived in Melbourne; the big smoke. I was spoilt for choice when it came to support services, and oblivious to how lucky I was.
I only wish I had reached out for mental health support while I had a chance, before it became incredibly difficult for me to find help. 
In July 2019 we moved to a farm in rural Tasmania and the isolation hit me hard. I quickly realised how much of a luxury those support services I accessed in the city were. Here, I was disconnected from support, and my village. It was the perfect storm.
Months after having my second baby Evie, my mental health spiralled. I waited two months for an appointment with a psychologist who only visited the local town once a fortnight, only to be turned away because they’d accidentally booked me under podiatry instead of psychology! I turned to Google, desperate to find telehealth support. I had no idea where to go.
Sadly, as a rural mum, my story is not unique.
Staggeringly, through a recent survey, my charity Motherland found over 70 per cent of rural mums have put off seeking healthcare because they’ve been unable to access or find the right services they need locally. 
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Thirty per cent told us they don’t have access to mental health services in their community, with more than half living between one and three hours away from the nearest town. Over 60 per cent of rural mums say they turn to Google to find services when they can’t find them locally. I wince to think of how many have just given up on finding support altogether because it’s just too hard.
While in the shower nearly two years ago, I came up with an idea to help connect rural mums to the health services they need.
This week, that idea became a reality after our charity launched Motherland Connect, Australia’s first digital health directory for rural mothers, helping them find services instantly.
The support mothers need goes far beyond the baby years, and so does this platform. We’re connecting rural women to services in categories including mental health, relationships, parenting education, first aid, allied health, pharmacies, postnatal health, matrescence, and more. 
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So if you’re a health practitioner or a business that offers support services for mums in the city, please don’t forget us out here on the land. If you can support rural mums via telehealth or online services, we need you. 
Motherhood is hard enough. But our postcode shouldn’t dictate our ability to access the help we need.
Stephanie is the Founder and CEO of Motherland, a national charity that supports rural mums across Australia. The Motherland Connect platform launched this week, you can find more information via www.motherlandconnect.org.au
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