Page 4514 - Week 12 - Wednesday, 31 October 2018
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So what the co-design, through the family safety hub came, up with was an idea for how we can understand the dynamics of domestic and family violence so that people feel more confident to ask for support: identify pregnant women and new parents at risk of domestic and family violence and intervene earlier; ensure that supported, trusted people who will engage with pregnant women can provide responses, particularly to women from diverse backgrounds; and look at how we equip women and men to cope with the stresses of new parenthood better so that the chance of violence is reduced.
The first challenge that comes about through this co-design, in providing information for pregnant women, is providing legal advice to women through places where pregnant women and new parents will more likely visit and will more likely have a trusted relationship with a health professional or a legal professional. We will be piloting a program which will be able to provide pregnant women with that extra support, should they need it, because we found that they would be more fearful of approaching police or someone like that because of it then it affecting their relationship in the long term. We are making sure that that support is there for women, particularly given what the research shows us and what we have heard from people with lived experience, through their pregnancy and following their pregnancy, of domestic and family violence.
The second matter that I want to touch on is postnatal depression. Postnatal depression is all too common. Many women go without support in diagnosing postnatal depression or antenatal depression. But there are lots of signs that somebody might be struggling with postnatal depression. Those can include having very low moods, feeling inadequate, having a sense of hopelessness, feeling exhausted, feeling guilty, feeling anxious or panicky, having trouble sleeping, worrying excessively about their baby and feeling scared of being alone or going out.
Fifteen years ago, when I gave birth to my first child, I was very much in the dark place of postnatal depression. It can be incredibly debilitating. It made me determined to be not just good or great; I wanted to be an excellent mother, which turned into a bit of an obsession for me through the postnatal depression. And of course breastfeeding was incredibly challenging, incredibly hard. Without going through the details that I am pretty sure every breastfeeding mother in this place will have experienced, I also had an excessive milk supply and could very easily have donated some of that milk to others. In fact, I reckon that if I had been able to do that it would have relieved some of my own anxiety—my inability to leave the house because of the excessive milk supply—in addition to helping other women who, for lots of different reasons, a couple of which I have touched on today, might not be able to breastfeed and choose to bottle feed or to use formula.
So I want to thank Ms Cheyne for bringing this motion to the Assembly today. I remember very clearly when I was breastfeeding. Why did we not have a breastmilk bank back then? I could very easily have donated to it and could have made a difference to many parents’ lives, had they had the option of accessing breastmilk for their own babies. I am very pleased to see that this is something the ACT government will be able to investigate in establishing an official milk bank in the ACT. It will
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