⚠️ Content Warning: This episode discusses postnatal depression, anxiety, and psychosis from a mother’s perspective. If you’re not feeling up to it today, consider pausing and coming back when you feel ready. If you need support, the PANDA National Helpline is available on 1300 726 306 (Monday to Saturday, Australia-wide). Please take care of yourself. 💛

In this episode of The Science of Motherhood, Dr. Renee White sits down with Dr. Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini, a child developmental psychologist and passionate advocate for maternal mental health. Siobhan shares her deeply personal experience with postnatal depression, anxiety, and psychosis, shedding light on what it is really like to navigate these challenges while caring for a newborn.

Motherhood is often painted as a time of joy and love, but for many mums, the reality is much more complex. The mental load, the sleep deprivation, the constant worry. It can all take a serious toll. But what happens when those struggles turn into something more?

Siobhan’s story is raw, honest, and deeply relatable because no mum should feel alone in their struggles.

You’ll hear about:

✔️ Recognising the signs – What PND, anxiety, and psychosis can look like in new mums and how to know when to seek help.

✔️ The mental load of motherhood – Why so many mums feel overwhelmed and how to lighten the burden.

✔️ The importance of support – How your village (or lack of one) can impact recovery and ways to build a network that works for you.

✔️ Navigating motherhood after mental health struggles – What Siobhan did differently with her second baby and the strategies that made all the difference.

✔️ Seeking help without shame – Why taking care of yourself is not just for you but for your baby, your family, and your future.

If you have ever felt the weight of motherhood press down on you, this episode is for you. Whether you are currently struggling, supporting a friend, or simply want to understand more about maternal mental health, Siobhan’s insights are powerful and necessary. You are not alone mama, and help is always available. 💛

Resources and Links:

🌐 Want to learn more about Dr Renee White and explore Fill Your Cup Doula services

📲 Want to chat more about this? Connect with Dr. Renee White on Instagram: @fillyourcup_

🍪If you want to gobble up our famous Chocolate + Goji lactation cookies, look no further!

📲 Connect with Dr. Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini on Instagram @science_minded or visit her website scienceminded.org.

🌱 Need support? Check out:

• PANDA National Helpline – Free and confidential support for perinatal mental health concerns. Call 1300 726 306 (Monday to Saturday). Learn more at www.panda.org.au
• Peach Tree Perinatal Wellness – A Queensland-based organisation supporting perinatal mental health. Learn more at www.peachtree.org.au
• White Cloud Foundation – Offering free counselling, occupational therapy, and meal support for parents struggling with mental health. Learn more at www.whitecloudfoundation.org

📩 Loved this episode? Share it with a friend who needs to hear it and don’t forget to hit subscribe so you never miss an episode.

Disclaimer: The information on this podcast presented by the Fill Your Cup is not a substitute for independent professional advice.

Nothing contained in this podcast is intended to be used as medical advice and it is not intended to be used to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease, nor should it be used for therapeutic purposes or as a substitute for your own health professional's advice.

[00:00:27] I'm Dr. Renee White, and this is The Science of Motherhood. Hello and welcome to episode 162 of The Science of Motherhood. I'm your host, Dr. Renee White. Thanks so much for joining me today. We've got a very interesting episode today. It's quite a heavy one. I'm not going to be beat around the bush on this one.

[00:02:25] And you would have heard her recently in December talking about how to best manage how kids push our boundaries. She is just an amazing woman. And in that discussion, she kind of touched on the fact that she developed postnatal depression and psychosis. And when we went offline after the episode, I kind of said to her, you know, would you be interested in coming back onto the podcast and chatting about that as a personal experience, which we don't typically do here on the Science of Motherhood, kind of a more you know, keep it a bit light and we're all about facts and latest research and things like that.

[00:03:35] We look at her self awareness of it, you know, the dynamics between her and her partner throughout it, what the red flags were, and I guess what she has learnt from all of that, and let's just preface this by saying this was with her first child and she subsequently gone on and had a second child. And I guess, with that all in the past, what did she do differently the second time around, which was very, very insightful as well. So, as I said, if this doesn't feel good for you right now, just pause and maybe go back to this later, this episode later and, and, and come back to it when, when you're feeling a bit better about it.

[00:04:38] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: I am very well. How are you going?

[00:05:30] But I asked you, would you be keen to talk about that journey? And you have so graciously said yes and been very generous with your time. It's something that you do hear about occasionally, particularly psychosis. Um, it's kind of that thing where you're like, Oh yeah, I heard a friend of a friend have it, or you might hear about it in the media, but I don't think that gets as much airplay as like a postnatal depression and or anxiety.

[00:06:12] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah.

[00:06:15] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: You're so welcome. You're very welcome. I mean, I love to talk. I mean, I don't love to talk about it because obviously the most traumatic thing that's ever happened to me, but I love the opportunity to talk about these things because it's so important.

[00:06:49] It's important to be honest. But, like, the thing is, it's true. And the reason, like, we say those things is that it does make you feel less alone. And when you're in the depths of mental health, mental ill health, you feel alone and you feel broken and you feel terrified. And the idea that anyone else could feel the level of pain you're feeling is so foreign.

[00:07:20] Dr Renee White: Yeah, absolutely. So walk us through what that journey looked like and also I think if you can just build in some context around the fact that like, you know, stepping into this motherhood journey, were you aware, like, did you have an acute awareness of like postnatal depression, anxiety, psychosis?

[00:07:44] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yes and no. So I have, so let's, let's walk it all the way back. I, um, and so much I'm still learning so much about my own kind of experience of mental illness and my own, like, experience with anxiety and depression, all these things, which I have had several major depressive episodes throughout my life, which, like, in high school and, um, throughout university.

[00:08:24] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:08:33] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:08:44] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:09:15] In hindsight, I have had anxiety my whole life, but in the 90s, we didn't really have an understanding that children had an internal world, let alone an experience outside of positive happiness because they're children. What do they have to be sad about? And none of that is to criticise anyone like, that's just society as a whole.

[00:09:54] That's what anxiety looks like in a 5 year old, a 6 year old.

[00:09:59] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: But regarding. So, yeah, I had depressive episodes in high school and university. I'd been medicated in university for them and I've kind of been on meds on and off ever since. And so I fell pregnant in 2019 and I had my eldest son in December at the very end of December 2019. And that was all fine. We, fine. We had a traumatic birth. Um, he was stuck here at Sheldon Astosia. I dissociated during the birth. I didn't really realise that's what I was doing at the time. A lot of this has come with hindsight, but

[00:10:42] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah. So what happened was I had a really long labor. I was. My waters broke on Christmas Eve and he was born on Boxing Day, so I had 52 hours between those two things. I had no sleep, I was exhausted and like skeleton staff at the hospital. So, even though they were doing the best, there just wasn't the level of support there for me to feel safe and comfortable.

[00:11:31] She slammed the red button, 14, 15 people ran into the room and I remember having the thought. Oh, this is really bad. This is really, really, really bad. You don't need to be here. So, I basically, it's like my self left my body.

[00:11:49] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Um, and I remember being very consciously aware it was happening, but there was no emotional connection to any of it.

[00:11:56] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Like, and it's like, I was narrating what was happening. It's like, oh, the doctor's doing that. Oh, where's Alex? Is he? Okay. Like, it was just so devoid of.

[00:12:04] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: connection to what was happening and process that in therapy a boatload because I've got a lot of, or had a lot of feelings of guilt because I felt like I abandoned my husband, like, that he was just left to feel all these feelings, and I just noped out of there. Obviously, that was a coping mechanism. It was too emotional and like, too scary for me to be there. And then he was born and it was quote, unquote. Okay. And then he was a very unsettled baby. He had what would later be diagnosed as gastroesophageal reflux disease.

[00:13:02] Dr Renee White: Yeah,

[00:13:26] And at about 9 months, it switched from every 2 to 3 hours to every 30 minutes. So, for 2 months, he was waking every 30 minutes. So I, that's when, that's when the quote unquote wheels fell off. And then in that, when he was about 11 weeks old, the lockdown started.

[00:13:46] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Um, cause this is COVID and I've reflected on this so much and like COVID mums who'd had babies in and around COVID have a special collective trauma because we often forget how intense it was.

[00:15:05] No sleep. My husband and I felt so out of our depth. Um, we kept thinking, what the hell have we done? Why did we, what a terrible mistake, we've made having a baby. We, we seriously sat down 1 day and said to each other, how do we get out of this? We, we can't because, we're not bad enough for the Department of Child Services to take him off us.

[00:16:26] I was, um, I can, like, I can remember it picture it in my head like a movie right now. I was bouncing on the yoga ball with a screaming baby. My husband's in the other room on meetings, zoom meetings, and then I remember thinking I was listening to a podcast that was talking about activating your village.

[00:17:25] Dr Renee White: Yeah,

[00:17:57] I remember people was describing that idea, and that was the first time I'd really felt it that intensely. And then the cutest thing, and I've got a beautiful photo of him the next morning. We went to pick him up and he was happy as could be. He'd had a wonderful time and we had him for a few more, like, we just continued like, normal for a few days as the 1 night of sleep is going to fix anything.

[00:18:22] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Uh, huh slept like the dead.

[00:18:25] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Um, because I was so by this stage, my, I was so fried, everything was so, I was, it's tricky. I can hear myself stumbling across my words because I'm obviously tapping into those feelings of what it was like, but there was just nothing left.

[00:19:27] And then not long after that, I, the psychosis started and I still kind of like, obviously everyone has different experiences for all these kinds of things, and for me, the psychosis was very much like a tertiary symptom. It was like, intense sleep deprivation, obscene levels of anxiety, just a nervous system that is absolutely fried.

[00:20:14] But they were starting to become more violent and more confronting and really, really scary. And then I was hearing voices, like, not scary or like ominous voices, but I was just hearing noises and voices that I knew, weren't there and I had, I think, a big part was, I was with my psychosis. I was just experiencing a lot of hallucinations, auditory and visual.

[00:21:06] Um, so my husband and I had talked about that before and I, I think it. I had started hiding the knives because I didn't trust myself around them in the kitchen and then I did that for about a day and then I realised that, that wasn't going to work as a solution and I had to tell someone. So I came to my husband like tears and just so much shame.

[00:22:12] She said, clearly, you thought you were making sentences and coherent speech, but she said it was gobbledygook. And like, just like, it was so I was walking into walls. Like, I just was a non functioning human. So, like I said, Maria's known us for 20 plus years. So I was put on mandatory bed rest for three weeks.

[00:22:49] Dr Renee White: Wow, Siobhan, that's um, that's a lot. First of all, thank you for being so brave and honest with that. Like that's um, I have so many questions.

[00:23:03] Dr Renee White: You touched on the fact that your husband, partner, I always, yeah, I always like, I get, I'm like, okay, I need to make sure this is right.

[00:23:16] Dr Renee White: So he experienced postnatal depression and anxiety as well. Is this something that. The two of you like, did you go through some counseling together and individually? What did that look like?

[00:23:48] It's a big part of my story, but my acute healing, where I kind of got to the point where I felt vaguely like a person again, took about three months, like just where I was vaguely functional. And I don't think I actually had therapy at that point because it was COVID still and you couldn't get into anyone.

[00:24:53] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:25:01] Dr Renee White: And completely let go.

[00:25:04] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:25:14] And that's kind of stuff where. Now, almost 5 years later, he kind of trusts that that isn't a risk anymore, even though, from my perspective, it hasn't been a risk for a really long time.

[00:25:27] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: But obviously that's such a deeply held and valid fear. That that has been really big and in terms of therapy, his.

[00:25:55] Um, and. We've had some of the best conversations and some of the worst conversations on Mount Coo-Tha, which is a mountain near us that, um, and 1 of the biggest things that I think isn't necessarily talked about is how devastating this was for our relationship. We, there was a point when I'd started to get vaguely well, where we were so disjointed and disconnected that, like, we had some serious conversations about, are we going to break up?

[00:27:18] Dr Renee White: Yeah. What kind of two follow up questions when you're, when both sides of the family. you know, as you refer to it, were activated and everyone came together. Were there certain things that they did to, I guess, move the needle in terms of your mental health improving? Were there certain things where you're just like, oh, that's an absolute game changer.

[00:28:07] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah. For the first like three weeks, month, I was a zombie. Like, I, we upped my meds massively, like, had to call the federal government to approve the dose kind of level.

[00:28:41] And she had since said that if I didn't know the family as well as I do. It would have been straight to hospital. So, in essence, I was institutionalised. It's just that I did it at home.

[00:28:53] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Um, but, yeah, I was, I was an absolute zombie. I basically breastfed and did nothing else and that's because my baby didn't take a bottle.

[00:29:26] Um, and kind of like, I wish I could join them, but I can't, but yeah, in terms of, I just, but no, I didn't feel grateful. And that's not because I shouldn't have been, I definitely should have been, but I, I felt so ashamed that I needed that much help, um, which is all stuff I've been working on ever since, because I have always viewed myself as like pathologically independent where I don't need help. I've got my shit together. So I, yeah, in all honesty, I felt. An immense amount of shame.

[00:30:21] But I feel like the pendulum has swung too far in terms of you know, we've built women up to be this, you can do it all and you can be independent and you can have your career and you can have your babies and you can have your social life and all the rest of it. And I just, feel like we're setting ourselves up for a big fail when it comes to motherhood.

[00:31:16] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And even if you can, which you can't, you shouldn't.

[00:31:32] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: No.

[00:31:42] And so, yeah, we, I, I see this time and time again with families that we support, and we always get the lowdown on, you know, what's your personality type? And, you know, And it is. If you're an A type personality, and as you say, you're pathologically independent, then it's one of those things that we kind of have to be on high alert for, because it's a slippery slope, as you've said.

[00:32:25] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yep telling my like coming to my husband and telling him how bad things were was one of the most painful things, partly because I knew like, I'd be quote unquote admitting how bad I was but mostly because I knew that he would activate help.

[00:33:02] The fact that you have, like, such a crystallised memory is usually because it's traumatic or hugely emotional is I remember, like, pressing the doorbell and I can picture everything perfectly because it felt it felt like admitting defeat. Um, it felt like saying I'm not cut out for this. Um, which is horrific because I've worked with children my whole adult life.

[00:33:51] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:34:20] Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, which is a specific type of therapy for people with post traumatic stress disorder, which I was diagnosed with as well. And it was magic, like, it,

[00:34:34] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: So, um, I think it's like a 10 session program, but the, the crux of it, which is the kind of sexy part of it that gets all the focus is, um, and I might get this wrong, but my understanding of it is basically the way memories are formed has a lot to do with the hypothalamus as it's a part of the brain, which also is how we.

[00:35:12] So, what happens is there's a whole bunch of, I'm sorry, a whole bunch of prep work, but the actual core sessions are with my therapist. I, um, she has all these prompts to guide me, but basically I focus incredibly intensely on the, like, um, technical memories, those memories that are incredibly visual and palpable and the kind of traumatic memories where you can step right back into it and feel the feelings immediately.

[00:36:01] So it got it had gone from like these technical technical memories where I could it was like a tv screen and I could step into it and I could feel everything I was feeling right then and then now it's just a normal memory very painful memory still but it's not like when I think about those memories I don't feel all those feelings again okay it creates a separateness and I think that it's got something to do with it forces the brain to reprocess those memories and not treat it as though it's a current experience.

[00:36:32] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: To push it into long term memory storage.

[00:36:38] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah, so it's only existed for about 20 or 30 years and they've done a lot of, like, PTSD veteran, like, for veterans and had a lot of success. But. It's wonderful. It's really hard and very painful because obviously you're processing the worst times of your life with someone over and over again. It sucks, but it's been groundbreaking for me.

[00:37:20] And I went by myself. I didn't know anyone else there. And I had done a lot of therapy around, you know, before I even became a mum. And then, you know, once I became a mum, even more therapy, because, you know. Those things just crop up when you have a baby. They're like, hello.

[00:37:40] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Yeah. It's like, Oh, you know that thing that you kind of like shoved in a box back there? Um, yeah, we're back. So I, I'd walked in and kind of done a little therapy and I thought like, I'm all good. And then, Bernadette did this thing, it was a whole day workshop and she, I think it was like just before lunch, she, she was like, okay, we're going to do like a bit of a body scan little activity.

[00:38:24] And we're going to like, think about the babies that we've had and I completely lost it, Siobhan. Like hysterical crying like, as you were saying, you know, you just got tears running down and you're just like, Oh my God. And to me it was the processing of like, I'm never going to be pregnant again. Right?

[00:39:02] Like, it's like, got to that point.

[00:39:05] Dr Renee White: And she said to me, have you processed this? And I was like, I've done so much therapy. And she looked at me, she's like, have you done any body work? And I was like, What do you mean? And to me, that stuff was foreign. So my question to you is, did you do any body work?

[00:39:28] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:39:32] Dr Renee White: Yeah,

[00:39:43] We so it's Amanda, amanda Connell. There we go. Yeah. Perfect. She is brilliant. So she is a psychologist. So there is talk therapy involved, but the body work and the, her talking me through body work was what I did. So, and so we did a lot of that because again, kind of type a highly intellectual, highly analytical. I'm very good at talking about my feelings.

[00:40:06] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: I'm very terrible at feeling my feelings.

[00:40:11] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Like I'm so good at talking myself out of feeling my feelings.

[00:40:29] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Thanks. Thanks for coming. You're not needed. Bye. Um, yes, no, I'm, I'm brilliant at that too. So a huge part of my therapy was not like having a choke hold on my feelings. Um, and this is work that I'm still doing now where I feel a feeling and I don't go shut it down, shut it down.

[00:41:10] Dr Renee White: Okay.

[00:41:34] And yeah, a huge part of my therapy was learning and like a huge part of my challenges prior was that I'd have all these feelings come up. I'd have this panic. I'd have this, this trauma and I would intellectualize it, or, like, wrap it up tightly and shove it away. And so it was just stuck in my body. So I think I don't know if we've talked about it before the book, the body keeps the score.

[00:41:58] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah. So that was huge for me as well and I've read and done so many of those practices that he talks about in the back of the book because yeah, like I think so much of, and I think part of the challenge of why talk therapy was not the best for me.

[00:42:40] Like, this is just like, oh, but you have to I'm like, yeah, yeah, but I don't know what the hell it's connected to. And, of course, there are deeper held things that over time we got to, but so much of my stuff was felt in my body. So a huge part of my therapy was running, was going for walks, um, was like getting my body and my nervous system to a state where it could even feel calm.

[00:43:20] Dr Renee White: Just a heightened state, like your baseline.

[00:43:30] So, it was so much of it was just learning to calm myself and just little things like, and I don't know whether anyone relates to this, but, like, everyone talks about breath work being amazing. And I was like, and it is, but when I first started doing those things, it didn't do anything for me. Because you can't, if you're operating at 200 breathwork brings you down to like a hundred, but you're still way too high. And I couldn't feel the difference. And I remember the first time doing breathing exercises actually helped me avoid a panic attack. And I was like, this shit's magic. But it's because I'd finally come to a, like a stage where I could even get under.

[00:44:13] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Two, three years.

[00:44:15] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: At least

[00:44:23] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: No and, like, mostly and it's what everyone always says. But, of course, I dismissed it because I think I'm too clever for my own good, but it's like doing it when you're not heightened. Like, you have to practice these things. when you're in a calm state, for your body to even identify that this is a useful strategy.

[00:44:42] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Whereas like, I think before that, a lot of the time I would be like, really heightened or really panicked. And I'd be like, this breath work, this breathing's not doing anything. It's like, of course it's not. Of course it's not.

[00:45:25] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yes. And I feel like this is episode number 2, but let's let's go. It's amazing.

[00:45:30] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Let's do it. So. When so, I said prior that at about 3 months after. The wheels fell off, I was functional again and then about 6. 6 to 8 months after again, I was kind of well'ish, and I came to my husband.

[00:46:16] So, from his, he was one and done. He's like, we, we shot our shot and it almost went terribly. So we're just lucky that we're here. Whereas I come from a big family, I've always wanted multiple children and the idea that we were done was just not at that at that time was just a non negotiable. So we had lots of fights.

[00:47:09] Although we did have a very problematic vaginal birth and we had been told that if I had another birth. The chances of that happening again, increased and that they would recommend a cesarean, but I said that I was open to it and that for him, that was an indication that I was becoming more flexible in my thinking.

[00:47:28] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: So, for him, the facts I used to be much more black and white as like, which is indicative of all of my challenges and anxiety and all of those things people with who are highly anxious often have much more black and white thinking.

[00:47:41] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Surprise. And so, yeah, it was kind of indicating that I was becoming more flexible and open to these kinds of things.

[00:48:14] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:48:27] Dr Renee White: Honesty right.

[00:48:39] Not that we weren't before, but we were trying to protect each other. So that that had gone and we're both really honest, and we were terrified, but we decided to try it within, which was terrifying because we thought it would take longer. Again, we, what have we done? Why have we done this? This is a terrible idea.

[00:49:18] Dr Renee White: Fascinating

[00:49:30] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:49:43] Dr Renee White: Yeah. There's this little box that I found stored away and it keeps, it keeps making noise.

[00:50:14] And then I saw a social work, like I just.

[00:50:18] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Hardcore, I was seeing people all the time. I was, I met with Kathryn from MotherUp who does postpartum planning.

[00:50:25] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: I did that from about 6 months. Um, and we did some really intensive postpartum planning around every aspect of like, practical, emotional, social, I went back to work at 5 months after I gave birth to my son, and that was planned because for me, work was really calibrating for my sense of self. Yeah, just so much intense and intentional support and some real honesty. And, like, the plan was that if, um, he was as an as much of an unsettled baby as my eldest, my mum would move in and my mother in law would move in.

[00:51:02] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And we'd have, like, there was just so many things in place, but the biggest takeaway was that. And I kept just my mantra was, I'm different, this is a different baby, I'm different, even if things are as terrible as they were. They'll be different. So, it was really embracing that it can be as bad as before, but it will be different bad. And we've been there before and we survived. So we can do it again, but it was terrifying. It was utterly terrifying.

[00:51:38] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Not even close. Yeah. Not even close. I, for the, easily the first four or five months. My husband and I would pinch ourselves every three or four days being like, he's asleep. He put himself to sleep. Like you just, if he would grizzle, you'd pick him up and then he'd go to sleep.

[00:52:13] Dr Renee White: Yeah.

[00:52:23] Dr Renee White: Yeah, this is just how it is.

[00:52:30] Dr Renee White: Yeah. That I think I recall seeing your stories on Instagram when you had him and you, I think you had made comments about it, just like it being such a different experience this time.

[00:52:59] Dr Renee White: Mm hmm. It's cyclical.

[00:53:01] Dr Renee White: It's not chicken or egg.

[00:53:24] And I had like a full body flashback of like, and shaking and everyone in the operating theater freaked the hell out. I'm like, dude, it's in the notes, but, my husband was able to come and I was like, no, no, this is just PTSD. It's nothing. She's not responding to the meds or anything. Um, just, just PTSD. Um,

[00:53:45] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah, yeah. But anyway, he was born and he had, uh, um, some breathing issues and like an area of collapse in his lung. And so he was rushed off to NICU and was there for three days, two days, three days. So that was really hard and challenging, but I think cause I'd already experienced. I think I just didn't experience it as traumatic in the same way.

[00:54:30] I'm not leaving on mental health grounds. You can't make me leave the hospital. And then I have got a, um, my sister in law's a doctor and she said, you've got about two weeks before they start the paperwork because it's too much hassle. So they don't really, it's easier for them to just go. Oh, okay.

[00:54:47] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah. And I was like, that is very useful to know

[00:54:52] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Precisely and I was like, thank you. I'll be doing that. I think we ended up staying five days. I think previously they had wanted, I think they wanted me out after about two days. I know.

[00:55:03] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: I know. I just kept saying no, thank you. I'm not leaving. There was very little pushback. They just spoke oh, so we hear you're getting discharged. No, I'm not. No. Oh, okay.

[00:55:16] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yes.

[00:55:19] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And this is in the public hospital in Queensland and obviously different, different places are different, but yeah, this was a public hospital. And I just said, my baby's not here. I have a history of mental health issues. Check your notes. I'm not leaving.

[00:55:32] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yes

[00:55:34] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Of course. Yeah, we've been talking seriously, I've been talking about it for years. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:56:28] And then when you have the world go down the toilet and the carpet pulled out from underneath you. Yeah. That is, that is actually, I think, as someone who experienced this many, many times in my life, worse than not being prepared at all.

[00:56:46] Dr Renee White: Because you're like, hold on a minute. I had everything prepped and now you've just taken it all away from me.

[00:56:53] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: I did what I was supposed to do. I did all the right things.

[00:57:02] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah.

[00:57:14] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: No.

[00:57:19] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And I'm still bad at like, I mean, I've become incredibly practiced. I still hate doing it. Like typically when I ask for help, I preface it with, I am bad at this.

[00:57:32] Dr Renee White: I don't know about you, but I find that I resort to, um, texting my husband because I have a, like a big thing with face to face. there's something about it where I'm just like, I can't hide. And then I start to stumble my words and I'm just like, Oh, this is too much for me.

[00:58:01] Please come and help me now.

[00:58:26] Dr Renee White: Yes, the matrix.

[00:58:33] Dr Renee White: Yep.

[00:58:44] And then you come to motherhood and your boss is this tall, like this, I'm sorry, this small little human that just screams, tells you nothing. You are the kind of person who is seeking advice from everyone and everything, because you're trying to quote, Get it right. Um, and that's wonderful, but everyone has advice and everyone has different advice and their advice relates to their child, not your child.

[00:59:10] Dr Renee White: Um, I've pushed those feelings away. Like, what are you talking about?

[00:59:16] Dr Renee White: Oh, and P. S. You have to keep them alive. Yeah. You know, it's not like a job or a subject at uni where you go, I don't like this. I'm actually just gonna like, can it. And I'm just gonna find something else to do. Yep. Um, or I'm going to find another job, or I'm going to find another set of friends. It's like, no, no, no, on top of that, you need to keep this thing alive. And PS, when you said to me, I had this conversation with my husband of like, how are we going to get out of that?

[01:00:17] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yep.

[01:00:19] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah. Oh, I. We have this amazing photo of so we have friends who's their eldest is 2 days younger than ours, and they had a really hard time too, um, in lots of similar and also different ways.

[01:00:53] It was very hard for me because I wanted to be and wasn't and we were still discussing. So they're little ones about 6 months older than our youngest. Previously, the husband had said. Why does anyone go back for another one? Like, they're idiots. Like, they know, like, I can understand having one you've, you don't know what kind of mistake you're about to make.

[01:01:27] Dr Renee White: Yeah. Yeah,

[01:01:37] I had panic attacks in the, like, supermarket when I heard when I to begin with, when I saw pregnant women. Okay, because I really wanted to go and tell them, no, what have you done? And like, again, intellectually, I knew that they probably wanted this and they would probably be okay, but I really was like, you're making a terrible mistake, which, of course, would never say that.

[01:02:26] Dr Renee White: Hey, we're going to jump into our rapid fire.

[01:02:30] Dr Renee White: Thank you so much for sharing that. Okay, here we go. What's your top tip for mums? And I'm going to reframe this if they feel like they're experiencing postnatal depression, anxiety, or psychosis.

[01:03:05] She was talking about the most harm she's ever done to anyone else was when she wasn't able to care for herself i,

[01:03:16] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: I know. And it really struck me because I was like, yes, that's absolutely my experience. The most harm I've ever done to anyone else I love was when I wasn't able to look after myself and all of the ramifications thereof. That self care is the, the most profound and meaningful form of care and love for humanity and others.

[01:03:39] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah, it's a good one.

[01:04:01] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: So many, the one that's jumping out to me is, and the reason I'm sharing this, because I don't think it's nearly well known enough. Actually, there's 2, there's, um, Peach Tree Perinatal Wellness, which is in Queensland. I don't know if they're elsewhere, but it's, um, I went to their groups quite a bit and that kind of, and it's support for perinatal mental health.

[01:04:33] Dr Renee White: I don't think I've heard of either of those.

[01:04:36] Dr Renee White: We're going to have to put those in the show notes, I think.

[01:04:47] I got free mental health counselling. Occupational therapy through them. They also offer, um, meal delivery for mums and dads affected by mental health challenges around, um, the prenatal space. They're a government funded source, like resource. They're brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

[01:05:13] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah.

[01:05:17] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yes.

[01:05:29] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: It was a bunch of books for my toddler. He's fully embraced toddlerhood in the last two weeks.

[01:05:35] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Which is great and terrible. So nothing is anywhere.

[01:05:40] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: No. So it was a bunch of books. They have since been strewn all over the house. I think there's nothing to keep it safe from him.

[01:05:50] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yeah. There's, there's blueberries under every cushion and couch and nothing is where it should be.

[01:06:07] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Yep.

[01:06:08] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: His current favorite thing to do is take things out of the dirty, um, washing basket and throw them into the bath that's full.

[01:06:16] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: And then he falls about laughing and you go, yeah, it's very cute. Now stop.

[01:06:24] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: They have to be, right?

[01:06:45] And yeah. You know, the previous Siobhan and I, I know I can see the work that you've done to put in and. It's just amazing that you were able to articulate to your husband that you needed help and that you had the support system around you. But it was a very, very dark time for yourself, for many others during COVID.

[01:07:33] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: You are so welcome. Very, very welcome.

[01:07:39] Because you are hanging out on Instagram and you're providing a lot of beautiful content around kiddies as well, which is your main profession.

[01:08:03] I'm also doing circle of security, um, workshops at the moment, which is all about, um, helping to strengthen and support secure attachments between parents and children. Um, so you can check that out on my website at scienceminded. org. But that's, that's mostly what I do with my time when I'm not, um, trauma bonding with Renee.

[01:08:26] Dr Siobhan Kennedy-Costantini: Oh yes He's helping, right?

[01:08:54] All right, everyone until next week, we will see you. Bye. If you loved this episode, please hit the subscribe button and leave a review. If you know someone out there who would also love to listen to this episode, please hit the share button so they can benefit from it as well.

[01:09:43] Until next time, bye!