Beyond the Six-Week Check

What Mums Really Need (and Rarely Get)

There’s a moment every mum remembers, not the big milestones or the picture-perfect memories, but the quiet ones. The 3am feed where your eyes burn with exhaustion. The moment you sit in the car alone for the first time after birth and realise you feel like a completely different person. The silent tears in the shower because you’re overwhelmed but can’t quite put your finger on why.

I remember those moments. I remember that early blur of postpartum where my whole world had changed, but the support around me… hadn’t.

You give birth, the hospital sends you home with a stack of pamphlets and best wishes, and suddenly you’re responsible for keeping a tiny human alive while trying to stitch yourself back together, physically and emotionally. And then, almost as quickly as it all began, it’s time for your six-week check. A short appointment. A brief conversation. A tick in a box that says you’re “all good.”

Except, I wasn’t all good. Not even close.

I didn’t realise then that postpartum care could be different. That it should be different. That there were places like The Mother Hub, a place where mothers are treated as whole people, not afterthoughts once the baby arrives.

Looking back, I deeply wish I had reached out. I wish I had known that I didn’t have to cope in isolation or pretend I was fine. And that’s why I’m writing this, for the mums who are where I once was.

If I could go back and change anything about my early motherhood experience, it wouldn’t be the sleepless nights or the chaos of learning everything for the first time. It would be this:
I would give myself more support. Real, consistent, wraparound support.
And that is exactly what The Mother Hub offers.

The fourth trimester - those first weeks and months after birth - is one of the most intense transformations a woman will ever go through. Your body is healing. Your hormones are roller-coasting. Your identity is shifting. Your entire sense of self is being rewired. And all while you’re caring for a newborn who needs you for absolutely everything.

It’s beautiful, yes. But it’s also raw, vulnerable, and unbelievably heavy at times. And yet, this is when the support around women tends to fall away.

This is the gap The Mother Hub intentionally fills.

Their care doesn’t end once the baby is born, it begins there. The Mother Hub brings together specialist GPs, endorsed midwives, lactation consultants, psychologists, counsellors, osteopaths, and allied health professionals who work together, not separately.

It means you can walk into one place and feel held by a whole team. You don’t have to retell your story ten times. You don’t have to chase down multiple appointments. You don’t have to figure out who can help with what.
Your care is connected. Your care is human.
Your care is centred around you and not just the symptoms you present with.

When I think about my own early postpartum experiences, I can see so clearly how different things could have been if I’d had that kind of support. If I’d been able to sit with a GP who understood the emotional weight of postpartum. If I’d had a lactation consultant and osteopath working together to guide me. If I’d had a counsellor who could help me untangle the thoughts I didn’t have words for at the time.

I wish I had known that feeding struggles weren’t something I had to “power through.”
I wish I had known that emotional overwhelm was not a personal failure.
I wish I had known that healing isn’t linear, and that it doesn’t have to be navigated alone.

And I wish, genuinely, that someone had gently pointed me in the direction of a place like The Mother Hub.

So if you’re a mum reading this, here is what I want you to hear:
You deserve support.
Not just at six weeks.
Not just when things fall apart.
Not just when you’re in crisis.

You deserve ongoing, compassionate, whole-person care that honours the woman behind the mother.

Postpartum doesn’t have a finish line. Some days you’ll feel steady, and other days you’ll feel like you’re learning to breathe again. You deserve a team who can meet you wherever you are in that journey, a team that walks beside you, advocates for you, and supports you in ways that truly matter.

Motherhood is too big to do alone.
And you don’t have to.

If you take away anything from my story, let it be this:
Don’t wait like I did. Don’t push through alone. Don’t tell yourself you have to handle everything yourself.
Give yourself the support you would want for your own child.
Reach out. Ask for help.
Let The Mother Hub be the village you deserve.

📍 John James Medical Centre, Deakin
📞 02 6196 6722
🌐 themotherhub.com.au