There’s a new place in Charlotte where new mothers can get critical support, and while it’s a first for the Queen City, it’s one of just a handful in the country.
Channel 9’s Elsa Gillis met with the co-founder of Ziva Postpartum Retreat, and she says she’s on a mission to support moms through one of the most wonderful, yet challenging, parts of life.
“Women have been doing it forever. There’s the assumption that we can just do it and it’s taken for granted that we need that support,” said Selena Williams.
Williams is speaking from her own experience having a baby, and the postpartum stage women face immediately after giving birth.
“Not enough emphasis is given to all the things mom goes through postpartum, and a lot of us are uneducated. For example, I had postpartum anxiety, and I didn’t even know what that was,” Williams said.
Beyond the physical challenges and caring for a newborn, about one in eight women report symptoms of postpartum depression, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Williams says the state of support for women postpartum and even new fathers in the United States is “abysmal.”
So she’s on a mission to change that. The Ziva Postpartum Retreat is in Uptown Charlotte and it’s a place where moms and their babies can go in the so-called “fourth trimester,” those critical first months of a baby’s life. They have around-the-clock doula care, a 24-hour nursery, mental health resources, pelvic floor and lactation support, meditation and yoga, and all meals are covered.
That amount of support comes at a price, $1,200 a night, and Williams says she knows that puts it out of reach for many new mothers.
“The thing that I would love to see is that we get to drop luxury from our name and we get to drop luxury from our description, and it becomes something that is accepted, that is needed for all moms, and covered by insurance,” Williams said.
There’s a similar concept to address those issues at no cost to the mother over in Union County. Channel 9 previously reported on the WoMB Clinic on Wingate University’s campus.
“We really wanted to make sure that we were kind of being holistic in addressing all areas of occupational therapy that could serve the mom before she had the baby, while she was pregnant, after she was pregnant, serving not just her, but the baby as well,” said Dr. Reeti Douglas with the university.
Through a grant, Wingate recently launched the free one-stop shop to help with infant development, lactation, mental health, pelvic floor therapy, and other needs for new mothers. Their door is open to all, insured or not.
“I think there’s a lot of room for growth in how we support moms ... I think the hard part is what are we going to do about it?” said Dr. Patee Tomsic.
Tomsic and Douglas say they’d love to see more clinics like this around the country, just as Williams says she’d like these retreats to become commonplace.
“My goal is to change the culture that we have in this country. I know that’s a huge thing to say, but I want it to be culturally acceptable that postpartum is a very, very profound thing that moms go through,” Williams said.
These postpartum retreats are popular in other parts of the world, but there aren’t many in the United States. Williams says most moms they see are between three and eight weeks postpartum.
Learn more about the Ziva Postpartum Retreat at this link.
Learn more about the WoMB Clinic here.
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