Guest Post: My experience of perinatal and postnatal OCD

Today is #TimeToTalk day, a day all about increasing mental health awareness by talking about it and perhaps reaching out to someone with mental health issues to make sure they’re doing okay. Here I have a guest post from a close friend of mine who had her daughter 7 weeks before I gave birth to Autumn and has unfortunately been suffering from OCD since during pregnancy. I’ll be posting about mental health quite a lot on my blog, so I thought it would be interesting to ask her to write a post for me about her experiences so I could find out more about what she’s been going through but also to spread awareness of perinatal and postnatal OCD.

Please be aware that as with lots of things regarding mental health, this may be triggering.

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Sunday Review: Quinny Zapp Xtra 2 with birth inlay

Today I’m quite excited – partly because yesterday Autumn discovered her foot and I’m hoping today’s the day she puts it in her mouth (I find it so cute when babies do that) and because today is the start of the ‘Sunday Review’ posts I’ve decided to start writing!

I enjoy reviewing products – in the past I’ve been sent vouchers or products for free in return for reviewing them for companies. These have included Tesco’s Free From Range products, a Veet Easywax, YUM spreads and Dove compressed deodorants. As such, I thought I’d start reviewing products each Sunday here. My current plan is to review beauty products and baby things alternate weeks, but that may change in the future. Anyway, my review this week is about the Quinny Zapp Xtra 2 stroller and the birth inlay that you can use to enable you to use it for babies before the age of 6 months when they can use it without.

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When Cassie cat found her forever home

Contains Sponsored Links¦ Back in 2010 when I was 18, my parents decided they were going to adopt a rescue cat from Cats Protection League. I’d practically moved out a couple of months before to live with my then boyfriend, now husband and was disappointed they’d never had a cat when I lived with them as I’d always wanted one but also excited that there was going to be a new cat in the family!

I still remember when my Mum received the phone call saying they may have found a cat for us and going to have a look at her to decide if we wanted her. We had cuddles with her and fell in love.

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Children’s health and poverty in the UK

As both a mother and Social Sciences student, I have found the State of Child Health Report 2017, which was published today, concerning. Poverty in the UK and how it affects the issue of children’s health is something I have been studying this academic year and found very interesting.

Although it’s encouraging to read that we are better than the US, how and why is it that we are worse than a lot of other European countries? We have the fifth highest rate of infant mortality in Europe which is extremely worrying and this is much higher in deprived socio-economic groups. As I glance at Autumn asleep peacefully next to me, I feel quite angry that not more is being done to prevent these small, beautiful, innocent babies from dying.

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