{"id":557996,"date":"2026-03-24T18:12:30","date_gmt":"2026-03-24T18:12:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/557996\/"},"modified":"2026-03-24T18:12:30","modified_gmt":"2026-03-24T18:12:30","slug":"i-spent-five-months-in-a-mother-and-baby-mental-health-unit-heres-what-i-want-mums-to-know","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/557996\/","title":{"rendered":"I spent five months in a mother and baby mental health unit – here’s what I want mums to know"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/p>\n

Sofii says her experience in a mother and baby unit following her diagnosis of OCD and postpartum psychosis tendencies has made the bond with her daughter even stronger<\/p>\n

When Sofii Lewis packed a bag for a mother and baby mental health unit, she thought she would be home within a fortnight.<\/p>\n

Instead, the 27-year-old spent five months there – time she said saved her and her daughter’s lives.<\/p>\n

Diagnosed with OCD<\/a> and postpartum psychosis<\/a> tendencies after giving birth, Sofii said she had “no idea” how unwell she was.<\/p>\n

“I knew I wasn’t safe. But I didn’t think I was out of control.”<\/p>\n

Postpartum psychosis is a rare but severe mental illness that begins suddenly in the days or week after birth, affecting around one in 1,000 mothers. It is treatable but can escalate quickly.<\/p>\n

Experts say specialist support for postpartum psychosis is now available across Wales.<\/p>\n

After a difficult pregnancy and birth, Sofii, from Aberdare, Rhondda Cynon Taf, said she knew instantly something was not quite right when she was handed her newborn daughter.<\/p>\n

“There was nothing. I had no interest, even though I had just given birth to my first child.”<\/p>\n

In the days and weeks after, she struggled to sleep and was plagued by a beeping noise in her bedroom at night, that was neither her phone nor the baby monitor.<\/p>\n

“I thought it must have been someone trying to buy Evie as my brain had connected that the beeping noise sounded like a till or a checkout.<\/p>\n

“It makes no sense to me now but that felt so real at the time,” she said.<\/p>\n

Sofii said she found herself getting angry every time Evie cried, so she visited a counsellor and explained her feelings.<\/p>\n

The counsellor told her she might benefit from a mother and baby unit.<\/p>\n

“I didn’t know they existed,” Sofii said.<\/p>\n

According to the NHS, symptoms of postpartum psychosis<\/a> vary and can change rapidly, including mania, depression, confusion and hallucinations – and can happen to any woman.<\/p>\n

It can last several weeks or longer and is much less common than postnatal depression and anxiety.<\/p>\n

Sofii said she was fearful about being separated from her partner and thought it would be like a “prison”, initially feeling “hysterical”.<\/p>\n

However, she said the unit was much more like halls of residence, living with other women with shared experiences, alongside medication, therapy and staff helping her bond with her baby.<\/p>\n

“She [Evie] was 16 weeks and that’s the first time I’d done skin-to-skin [contact] with her, and that was a really big moment for me.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Sofii wants to share her experience and help other women who may be struggling, encouraging them to ask for help if they need it<\/p>\n

Sofii said leaving the intense support of the ward after a long stay was hard but three years on she now wants to help other mums by raising awareness and encouraging others to ask for help if they need it.<\/p>\n

“They aren’t alone in this and when you are in it, it does feel like the most isolating thing in the world.<\/p>\n

“You think ‘I’ll never get back to [being] a normal mum’, but you will,” she said.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Dr Sally Wilson says support services have improved since her own experience of postpartum psychosis 11 years ago<\/p>\n

Dr Sally Wilson works at Action on Postpartum Psychosis, a charity she said saved her life 11 years ago almost immediately after the birth of her daughter.<\/p>\n

“In my mind I had died. I was living in an afterlife and being punished for something that happened to my daughter,” she said.<\/p>\n

“At that point I was diagnosed with postpartum psychosis.<\/p>\n

“I was completely detached from reality. It was really scary and I was admitted to a general psychiatric ward and separated from my baby at the time.”<\/p>\n

Wilson said it took her “a long time to recover” although specialist care had improved since her experience.<\/p>\n

“We now have perinatal specialist teams in all the health boards in Wales,” she added.<\/p>\n

“We have a mother and baby unit in Swansea and there is a unit that’s just opened in Chester, which is a collaboration between NHS England and NHS Wales.”<\/p>\n

Wilson said there was still “plenty of work to be done” to raise awareness of the condition with expectant parents, the public, as well as healthcare professionals.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Prof Arianna Di Florio says it can be particularly difficult for new mothers to ask for help because of the pressure to appear perfect<\/p>\n

Prof Arianna Di Florio from Cardiff University said it was important to raise awareness of the condition without creating anxiety or worry for women.<\/p>\n

“While it is very rare, it’s also very treatable,” she said.<\/p>\n

“It’s really terrifying but there are treatments that work very well and most women recover with some never getting ill again.<\/p>\n

“The prognosis is very good.”<\/p>\n

Di Florio said that lots of things like outreach were being done well, but it remained a difficult condition to detect, especially when there is no history of mental illness.<\/p>\n

“I know it’s easy for me to say but I think it’s a very important message to say that nobody chooses to get postpartum psychosis, it can happen to anyone.”<\/p>\n

If you’ve been affected by the issues in this story, help and support is available via BBC Action Line<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More top stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sofii says her experience in a mother and baby unit following her diagnosis of OCD and postpartum psychosis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557997,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[216013,216014,49,48,84,393,394,216016,216011,216015,216012],"class_list":["post-557996","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-baby-monitor","tag-beeping-noise","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth","tag-mother-and-baby","tag-postpartum-psychosis","tag-prof-arianna-di-florio","tag-sofii-lewis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557996","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557996"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557996\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557996"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557996"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557996"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}