The maternity crisis is forgetting the women who look like they’re coping – I was one of them

I was back at work, running businesses, looking after my family, and from the outside, I looked like a woman who had her life together.

Yet that's exactly why I think we're missing a huge part of the maternity mental health conversation.

When we talk about maternal mental health, we tend to focus on women who are in crisis. We talk about postpartum psychosis, severe postnatal depression and the mothers who are clearly in crisis and need urgent support. We don't usually talk about the woman sitting in the middle, who is functioning or getting on with it, and often she is carrying more than she can cope with, but feels she has no choice but to keep going.

I know that woman because, despite experiencing postpartum psychosis after the birth of my son in 2025, I was also her.

My experience of maternity care was one of constantly feeling delegated to the next person. I remember speaking to a GP because I knew what I was feeling had gone beyond the baby blues and what was constantly said to be ‘normal’. I was struggling with anxiety and low mood, and wanted to understand what was happening to me. I thought I’d taken the brave step and reached out, but instead, I felt as though the conversation very quickly became about what medication I could be prescribed.

I had expected more conversation and discussion around what to do, and I wanted somebody to ask more questions. Sitting in that patient chair with my son with me, I hoped somebody would be able to explain what was happening to my body. I'd recently had a baby, I was breastfeeding, and my hormones were changing dramatically, so I wanted somebody to tell me that these things mattered too. Yet that didn’t happen.

Then there was the red book that every mother is given, full of phone numbers and support services. I remember sitting there crying my eyes out, calling number after number, trying to find help. One person was on holiday, another told me I wasn't in her area, and another department told me to call somebody else.

At a time when I was already overwhelmed, I felt as though I was constantly being sent elsewhere, when what I really needed was somebody to stop and help me understand what was happening. What stayed with me most wasn't just my own experience, it was what I realised afterwards.

The forgotten middle, for me, is the woman I meet every day. The more conversations I had with other mothers, the more I realised how common this experience was. These weren't women in acute crisis. They weren't necessarily women who would qualify for specialist mental health support either. They were women who were exhausted, anxious, overwhelmed and struggling with a loss of identity after becoming mothers, yet because they were still turning up to work, still caring for their children and still functioning day-to-day, they were often seen as coping.

It was these conversations that ultimately led me to create RestoreHER, a motherhood retreat designed specifically for women in this forgotten middle who are struggling, but who often find themselves falling between crisis support and simply being told to get on with it.

We've got to a point as a society where we've normalised just how much women do. Even if she's not employed outside the home, she's still carrying the responsibility for the household, children, and family life. We expect women to absorb all of that somehow and continue functioning as though nothing has changed.

The reality is that having a baby changes everything - physically, mentally and emotionally. Yet so many women feel unable to speak honestly about how they're feeling. One of the reasons, I think, is fear of being labelled. For many women, especially women who have always been high-functioning, there's a fear that once you're given a diagnosis, that's who people see you as. There can also be a fear that if you're the person everyone relies on, what happens when you admit you're struggling?

So women keep going. They suppress what they're feeling, they tell themselves they'll deal with it later, and that's where I think we have a dangerous gap in postpartum support. Too often, women feel as though they're being pushed towards one of two extremes. On one side, there's a very medicalised approach, and on the other side, there's an overwhelming amount of holistic advice, but there are so many women who don't fully identify with either.

One of the biggest questions I keep coming back to is why we spend so much time checking on babies and so little time checking on mothers. We have appointments and milestones for our children, but where are the mental health check-ins for mothers at three months, six months or a year postpartum? Why are we waiting for women to reach a breaking point before we step in? Why aren't we putting more energy into prevention?

These are the questions that stayed with me long after my own experience, and ultimately they're what led me to create RestoreHER. Not because I think I have all the answers, but because I couldn't stop thinking about how many women were falling into this gap between coping and crisis.

Britain's maternity crisis isn't only about the women who reach crisis point. It's also about the women who never ask for help because they've convinced themselves they should be able to manage on their own. And until we start recognising that forgotten middle, we're going to keep missing a huge number of mothers who need support long before they reach a breaking point.

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Lina Perez is an entrepreneur and founder of RestoreHER, a motherhood retreat helping women navigate postpartum recovery, maternal wellbeing and the transition into motherhood.

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