Skip to content
The Motherhood Practice, home
Let’s chat (opens in a new tab)

Blog

Notes from The Motherhood Practice.

Honest writing on pregnancy, birth and the early weeks with a newborn, from a team of London midwives.

  • Upgrade to European maternity care in London

    Upgrade to European maternity care in London

    Your sister in Lyon had the same midwife from her first appointment to her baby's six-week check. Your best friend in Amsterdam had a maternity nurse at her door every morning for up to ten days after the birth. And you, pregnant in London, have just been told your first appointment is in six weeks' time. If that gap feels strange, it is because it is. Across much of Europe, a midwife who knows you is simply standard care, and for good reason: it means fewer caesareans, fewer interventions at b

    Sarah Seror2 October 20267 min read

  • Alexia

    Alexia

    Alexia and her partner were first time parents with no family nearby. Here is how the early weeks with their midwife Agata went. She was expecting her first baby, her family was far from London, and she wanted two things: someone to show her and her partner how to look after a newborn, and someone to call when they weren't sure. She was also set on breastfeeding and a little nervous about it. Most first time mothers are. Alexia was matched with Agata, one of our midwives, who visited the fami

    Sarah Seror28 September 20262 min read

  • Margo

    Testimonial

    Margo

    Margo moved to London while pregnant and had no idea what postpartum support would look like. Here is how six weeks with her midwife Agata went.

    Sarah Seror15 September 20262 min read

  • New partnership with Fertifa

    New partnership with Fertifa

    Midwife care through your employer: our partnership with Fertifa If your employer offers Fertifa, you may already know it as the benefit that helped with fertility treatment, egg freezing or the long stretch of waiting that comes before a pregnancy. From this month, that support does not stop at the positive test. We are proud to announce that The Motherhood Practice is now a partner of Fertifa, Europe's most comprehensive reproductive health and neurodiversity benefits provider. Fertifa suppo

    Sarah Seror15 September 20262 min read

  • The Motherhood Practice on BBC Woman's Hour!

    News

    The Motherhood Practice on BBC Woman's Hour!

    Our founder Sarah Seror joined BBC Woman's Hour to compare French and UK maternity care and explain why The Motherhood Practice exists.

    Sarah Seror15 September 20262 min read

  • The NHS called it a clinical safety mechanism. So why isn't continuity of care happening?

    The NHS called it a clinical safety mechanism. So why isn't continuity of care happening?

    In a health system where language tends toward the careful and the qualified, the National Maternity and Neonatal Investigation used unusually plain words. Having the same midwife throughout pregnancy, at birth and in postpartum (aka continuity of carer) is "not a luxury, it is a clinical safety mechanism." That sentence matters. Not because it is new information to those of us working in maternity care, but because it is now the conclusion of the most comprehensive review of NHS maternity serv

    Sarah Seror2 July 20264 min read

  • Hannah: "it's the first time I felt more than a set of notes"

    Hannah: "it's the first time I felt more than a set of notes"

    Hannah was pregnant with her first child. She was doing everything she was supposed to do, attending her appointments at the hospital and turning up on time. And yet, somewhere in the middle of it all, something felt quietly wrong. The appointments were short. The midwife was different each time. And more than once, Hannah left a consultation having been handed a leaflet about a decision she was expected to make, with no one in the room to actually talk her through it. Her notes were in the sys

    Sarah Seror17 June 20263 min read

  • Why a private midwife is not a doula, and why that difference matters

    Why a private midwife is not a doula, and why that difference matters

    You have probably heard of doulas by now. Perhaps a friend used one and spoke warmly of the experience. Perhaps you have seen them in the same conversations as hypnobirthing instructors and birth photographers, in that general category of taking your birth seriously. They are increasingly visible in London's maternity world, and for good reason. The emotional support they provide is real. For many women, it matters. This article is not an argument against doulas. It is an argument for understan

    Sarah Seror1 June 20265 min read

  • Therapy alone isn’t going to fix what’s missing in maternal health care

    Therapy alone isn’t going to fix what’s missing in maternal health care

    This fact might surprise you: Mental illness is the number one complication of pregnancy and the postnatal period. Not high blood pressure. Not postpartum haemorrhage. Nothing “physical” comes close - in terms of numbers - to the amount of reports clinicians receive regarding mental health.

    Sarah Seror25 May 20265 min read

  • Gestational diabetes: what the NHS doesn't have time to give you

    Gestational diabetes: what the NHS doesn't have time to give you

    Just diagnosed with gestational diabetes? Here's what good midwifery care looks like when your pregnancy becomes high-risk, and what you shouldn't have to navigate alone. You weren't expecting the call. Or perhaps it was a letter, or a message through the NHS app, brief and clinical, telling you that your glucose tolerance test had come back outside the normal range. Gestational diabetes. You've written the words down, Googled them, read the NHS page, the NICE guidelines, the Mumsnet threads. Y

    Sarah Seror14 May 20264 min read

  • After everything it took to get here: why pregnancy after IVF can feel like falling off a cliff

    After everything it took to get here: why pregnancy after IVF can feel like falling off a cliff

    IVF pregnancy comes with anxiety the NHS isn't set up to hold. Here's why having the same midwife throughout is life changing. You spent years getting here. Perhaps two rounds of IVF, perhaps more. Miscarriages. The blood tests at 6am. The injections. The two-week waits that felt like holding your breath until your lungs gave out. And then, finally, a viable pregnancy. A positive scan. A due date. You thought the fear would ease. It hasn't. What nobody tells you about pregnancy after IVF is t

    Sarah Seror14 May 20265 min read

  • The midwife who knows you

    The midwife who knows you

    What continuity of midwife care actually means, and what the evidence says it changes.

    Sarah Seror14 May 20266 min read

  • The midwife who stays when your pregnancy gets complicated

    News

    The midwife who stays when your pregnancy gets complicated

    Specialist-led care manages your condition. A named midwife manages you. Here is why both matter. You did not expect the call. Or perhaps you did, because you had been quietly bracing for it since the scan, since the blood test, since the moment a consultant used a phrase that sent you home to Google at 11pm. However it arrived, whether gestational diabetes at 38 weeks, a breech presentation at 34, a cervical length measurement that placed you on a different pathway, or a pregnancy after IVF t

    Sarah Seror14 May 20267 min read

In the press

Where you’ll find us in the news.

Get started

Start with a free call.

20 minutes with a midwife to talk through where you are and what you’d like help with. No commitment, no pressure.

Let’s chat (opens in a new tab)
A newborn's hand gripping an adult's finger