Mum who lost her baby gives others help at charity

A woman who gave birth to a stillborn baby said she used to avoid mother-and-baby groups after having her second child and now works for Bristol's only prenatal mental health helpline service.

Kaeti Morrsion said the first year of her son's life "was a bit of blur" as she never dealt with the grief of losing her first child.

Her career is now dedicated to Mothers for Mothers, a charity which provides emotional support to families with a network of people who have had a similar lived experience.

The charity will be celebrating its 45th anniversary this year but its helpline service is facing imminent closure unless emergency funds can be secured in the coming weeks.

Maria Viner, the charity's CEO, said it was "born through lived experiences". The Reach service helps families experiencing anxiety, depression, birth trauma, intrusive thoughts, or overwhelming distress.

Morrison is the charity's business manager, but she did not use the service when she lost her child in 2007.

"That kind of trauma really impacted the way I mothered and how I experienced having a new baby."

She added: "I didn't feel like I wanted to access your traditional groups with mums that maybe hadn't experienced what I went through."

Morrison said she found it difficult to explain that her son was not her first child.

Morrison told BBC Radio Bristol's John Darvall: "You either scare new mums or they get upset for you and you have to manage their emotions."

Now, she said "I would have absolutely phoned the helpline".

Morrison gave birth to her son the same year she lost her daughter. As a new mum she still felt isolated.

She added: "They're run very much like a traditional mother and baby groups, but everybody there has a perinatal mental health challenge and they are kind of run and facilitated by somebody with that lived experience."

The NHS used to fund the charity but due to the service's increased demand it can no longer be funded.

It needs to raise £141,000 by the end of March or they will need to make significant changes.

Viner said: "It's a big figure but we need this every year. We are doing everything we can to stay open."

Without this money "the worst case scenario is that we wouldn't be able to run it any more," Morrison said.

Morrison said the Reach helpline is the first access point for some parents to speak openly about how they are feeling.

For others, it is the only support available as they do not meet the threshold for specialist support services.

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