Postpartum support for Jewish mothers

Ensuring mothers get the support they need to thrive with their baby is seen as an important factor to preventing post-natal depression.

Raizel Fogel understood this need and created Haven for mothers and babies – supporting women who recently had babies and were suffering from, or were at risk of suffering from distress and postnatal depression. While it is a free service run in Fogel’s home, Haven is seeking a permanent residence for its next steps.

Speaking to The AJN about her motivation, Fogel said, “I’m a doula in the Jewish community, and I service a lot of women in hospitals all over Melbourne. I have found that there’s a very big lack of support for mothers after birth. Everything is sort of geared up towards the actual birth, and then there’s nothing available for mothers to support them. So, when I’ve seen a mother that’s really been struggling, I’ve invited them into our home. We built a purpose-built room … it’s got a bathroom, and I give three meals a day, and I just see how mothers sort of come back to themselves and bond with their babies.”

Fogel believes this problem grows when hospitals rush women home after birth, and as many mothers can’t afford private health insurance that can provide extra supports.

“Often women even haven’t registered that they’ve given birth and they’ve got this little baby, which they know very little about, with no support … When you’ve just come home with a newborn, you don’t know what to do. So, we would really love to have a place … I feel that if we had a place where it’s not in a private home, it would be so much more beneficial and more people would use the service.”