‘’What have we done? Our life was so good before’’

by Sarah Andrews April 26, 2023

After 15months of trying to conceive, two miscarriages, a lot of tears but fortunately a relatively straight forward pregnancy and labour our first daughter, the child we have hoped and prayed for, was here.

Martha was a beautiful red headed baby. I was expecting to fall in love with her from the moment I saw her and be unable to sleep due to staring at my new baby. The reality was that I was so exhausted from a long labour that I was fast asleep 10 minutes after she was born. I worried about this for months afterwards, wondering if it was not due to exhaustion but due to my lack of being the loving mum I wanted to be. Now I realise it was mum guilt hitting hard from day one.

We were discharged home later the same day. I was so excited to be back to my own home and comfortable bed. We had a glass of something fizzy to celebrate and headed to bed for our first night as parents. My main memory of this night is my husband lying on the floor trying to get some rest whilst also slowly rocking the cot. She cried A LOT, we tried to work out how to feed and we went into full panic at one stage when we noticed she had a rash. My sister-in-law arrived in the morning to meet the baby and the most wonderful midwife arrived an hour or so later. We were both exhausted so tried to get some sort of rest after this. Later this day we walked the dog around the village, and I remember at that point feeling amazing. I think it was the hormones, but I felt incredible and so proud of little Martha.

The next few weeks were chaotic! Little sleep, lots of crying (from everyone), cluster feeding and generally just feeling an overwhelming pressure to do this mothering thing well. Martha struggled with wind and colic and therefore evenings were hard. She would cluster feed for up to 8hrs and life as I knew it had totally changed. When were about two and half weeks in I put Martha down after a marathon cluster feed only for her wake moments later. I sat in my bed and round and round in my head all I was thinking was ‘’What have we done? Our life was so good before.’’

Here I was with a baby that I had longed for but within two and a half weeks I was questioning what we had done. I felt guilty. I felt ashamed. I looked around me and all I felt I could see was mums who adored their baby, yet I was questioning what we have done. For months I told nobody (not even my husband) about these thoughts due to fear of what people would think but I held on to the guilt and shame.

Over the next few months once we started to get more sleep, learnt what we were doing and had fallen totally in love with Martha I was able to reflect on how I had felt and talked to others about it. It was at this point that I realised I was not alone. New parents feel an expectation to transition from one life to an entirely new life without complaint but with happiness, gratitude, and joy. Imagine if you got an entirely new super hard job, with no training and as part of that new job you had to say goodbye to a significant proportion of your old life. Would you or others expect this to go without any ups and downs?

New parents need support, they need to know that it is normal to find things hard. There should be no guilt or shame felt if you don’t instantaneously fall in love with your child, if you find the transition to parenthood hard and if at some point of this transition you wonder ‘WHAT HAVE WE DONE?’ its ok.

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Privacy Policy

Updated: 18th May 2023 This privacy policy explains how Mumie ("we" or "us") collects, uses, and shares information about you when you access or use our website or web application ("App") collectively our "Services". Mumie is committed to complying with data protection and privacy law. We take your privacy seriously and are committed to protecting your personal information. Please read this policy carefully to understand our practices regarding your personal data.

Information We Collect

We may collect the following types of information when you use our Services:

Personal Information: We may collect personal information, such as your name, email address, baby's date of birth and contact information when you create an account.
Health Information: We may collect health information such as your demographics and aspects of your medical history to provide you with personalised health recommendations and to help you track your progress
Device Information: We may collect information about the device you use to access the App, including the type of device, its operating system, and other technical information.
Usage Information: We may collect information about how you use the App, including your interactions with forms, features and content available through the App.
Website usage: Website users do not create accounts, however, may still be subject to certain passive data collection. Such passive data collection may include cookies (please refer to separate Cookie Policy), IP address information, location information, and certain browser data, such as history and/or session information.

Mumie is intended to be used by women who have recently given birth. It is not intended to be used by children.

How We Use Your Information

We may use the information we collect for the following purposes:

To Provide Services: We use the information to provide you with the services offered by the App, including personalised health recommendations, and to improve the quality of those services.
To Communicate: We may use your contact information to communicate with you about our Services, including updates, promotions, and other news.
To Improve the App: We use the information to understand how users interact with the App and to improve its design, content and functionality.
To Comply with Legal Obligations: We may use your information to comply with legal obligations, such as responding to court orders or complying with applicable laws.

We will store this information within our App so that you can have access to it for as long as you are our registered user. We may also use it for statistical and research purposes, but only in an aggregated and anonymised format (i.e., in a format that does not allow us to identify who this information relates to). The information you provide will be processed on one or more of the following lawful bases:

The consent you provide to us at the point of collection of your personal information, including explicit consent for processing special personal data to include health data
The performance of the contract we have with you
The compliance of a legal obligation to which we are subject
The performance of scientific research, preparation of statistics or public health activities
The legitimate interests of Mumie, you or a third party, where not overridden by your interests, fundamental rights or freedoms

How We Share Your Information

We may share your information with the following types of entities:

Service Providers: We may share your information with service providers that help us operate the App or provide the services offered through the App.
Business Partners: We may share your information with business partners, such as insurers or healthcare providers, to provide you with more personalised health recommendations.
Legal Authorities: We may share your information with legal authorities, such as law enforcement agencies or courts, to comply with legal obligations or in response to a legal request.

We may share your information with other parties with your consent. Your information will not be transferred out of the UK.

Third-party links

The App and/or website may include links to third-party websites, plug-ins, and applications. Clicking on those links or enabling those connections may allow third parties to collect or share data about you. We do not control these third-party websites and are not responsible for their privacy notices and practices. When you leave the Web App or Website, we encourage you to read the privacy policy of every website or app you visit. In the event of acquisition of Mumie, your data may be shared with the new owners.

Marketing

We may use your contact details to provide you with information about our work, events, services and/or activities which we consider may be of interest to you. Where we do this via email, SMS, or telephone, we will not do so without your prior consent. You are free to opt out from receiving marketing communications by following the "unsubscribe" link in our email, or by contacting us directly. We will get your express opt-in consent before we share your personal data with any third party for marketing purposes.

Security of Your Information

We have put in place appropriate security measures to prevent your personal data from being accidentally lost, used, or accessed in an unauthorised way, altered, or disclosed. Your data will be stored on a secure web server, with the app hosted on a trusted host provider with regular security update enhancements. Your personal data can only be accessed by those within Mumie who have a genuine need to know. They will only process your personal data on our instruction, and they are subject to a duty of confidentiality. We have put in place procedures to deal with any suspected personal data breach and will notify you and any applicable regulator of a breach where we are legally required to do so. While we will use all reasonable efforts to safeguard your personal data, you acknowledge that the use of the internet is not entirely secure and for this reason, we cannot guarantee the security or integrity of any personal data that are transferred via the internet. We can not be held responsible for unauthorised access or use of your information that is beyond our control.

Data retention

We will only retain your personal data for as long as reasonably necessary to fulfil the purposes we collected it for. We may retain your personal data for a longer period in the event of a complaint or if we reasonably believe there is a prospect of litigation in respect to our relationship with you. Typically, we will not keep your personal data for longer than 5 years after you have closed your account on our App or stopped using it, after which point personal data will be destroyed. We may anonymise your personal data (so that it can no longer be associated with you) for research or statistical purposes, in which case we may use this information indefinitely without further notice to you.

Your Rights

You have the right to access and control your personal information, including the right to be informed about what data we hold, the right to access this data, the right to rectify inaccurate data, the right to erase your data, the right to restrict or object to your information being used, and the right to move your data to another business. If you have any questions about your rights or would like to exercise your rights, please contact us using the information provided at the end of this policy. When signing up to our app you will be asked to provide your consent to share your information. You have the right to withdraw this consent at any time and may do so by contacting us. You have the right to make a complaint at any time to the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO), the UK supervisory authority for data protection issues (ico.org.uk) We would, however, appreciate the chance to deal with your concerns before you approach the ICO so please contact us in the first instance.

Changes to This Policy

We may update this privacy policy from time to time. If we make changes, we will notify you by revising the date at the top of the policy and, in some cases, we may provide you with additional notice (such as adding a statement to our website homepage or sending you a notification). We encourage you to review the Privacy Policy whenever you access the Services or otherwise interact with us to stay informed about our information practices and the choices available to you. Your continued use of our services after the effective date of the updated policy will constitute your acceptance of the revised policy.

Contact Us

The Party responsible for the processing of your personal data is Mama Health Ltd. The Data Protection Officer (DPO) is Dr Laura Davies. The Data Protection Officer may be contacted using the contact us page on the website. If you have any questions or concerns about our privacy policy, please contact us using the contact page on our website or by emailing us at hello@mumie.health

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