Helping mental health in young mums

The 27-year-old, who has a five-month-old daughter Isabella, has set up a new campaign which aims to help mums see the positive in every day. She launched it across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram through her Isabella And Us website to tie in with Mental Health Awareness Week.

The I Am Winning As A Mummy Because... Campaign is based around mums sharing their daily ‘wins’ in a bid to inspire others and help focus their minds away from the negatives in life.

Emma said: “I struggled massively with the transition into motherhood, I put a great deal of pressure on myself and expected to be able to do all of the things I had done before Isabella was born.

“I’d spend my days focusing on what I had not achieved, rather than what I had and this had a detrimental affect on my well-being.

“When I changed my focus and began to focus on what I had achieved, rather than what I hadn’t, I began to feel so much better.”

After speaking to other mums online, Emma realised she was not alone in her experiences.

“As a mum it is so easy to place guilt on yourself for not having a clean house, not having done the dishes or those three loads of washing. But the honest reality is that can be difficult to achieve.”

One in three mums suffer with post-natal depression and most suffer in silence – 93 per cent of mums say they feel lonely at some point.

Emma said the campaign was a success – reaching more than 30,000 people and more than 60 mummy ‘wins’ were shared across social media.

Among the wins mums celebrated were: “Today I am winning as a mummy because the babies are napping after their play in the sun and I’m getting some ‘me time’”, “I managed to hoover the living room and still make it to Tumble Tots on time”, “Today I am winning because I just got a relaxing massage”.

Emma’s struggle when she became a mum led her launch a new business when Isabella was four weeks old, designing and creating ‘mummy milestone’ cards, to celebrate achievements.

Visit www.isabellaandus.com