What all some ideas or tips for postpartum help when you don’t have a community?
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You can always join a community! While I was pregnant my husband and I joined a church and it’s been super healing and supportive for us. A lot of churches will help with things like meal trains if you come to Sunday services and ask for support. You can also look into mama groups in your community. Preparing before you give birth is great too, like loving on your future self by prepping food and snacks for the freezer (soups, stews, congee, cookies, muffins), comfy pajamas, Sitz bath supplies, and a gratitude and memory journal. You can also talk with your partner ahead of time to make a game plan and clarify potential needs and expectations. For example, do you plan on staying in bed for the first two weeks? Could you see yourself desiring your back rubbed/tickled when you’re feeling overwhelmed and might ask for that a couple times in a day? Would you really like time to snuggle in as a family and pay for someone to help with laundry for a while?

What support does your partner anticipate needing physically and emotionally? Again, you can pay a young person $20 to come fold your laundry and/or do the dishes so you don’t have to worry about it and still feel put together and peaceful in your environment. Does he/she have family or friends who can support him/her emotionally through the ups and downs of having a newborn? You will both be so tired and need to understand how to take care of yourselves and each other and the new human you just brought home!

My father passed away when I was young and I lost my mother to mental illness and I didn’t have any other family near me aside from a younger sister or friends in the new town we moved to so we were mostly on our own. I did have an aunt fly out to help for a week and it was such a blessing.