by Sadaf Farooqi

Created on: February 10, 2009   Last Updated: February 19, 2009

The baby is bawling as you lift yourself off the bed, inhaling deeply to numb the pain in the stitches. Still struggling to master breastfeeding, you hopelessly watch the dirty laundry pile up each day. The breakfast dishes still lie unwashed in the kitchen sink; the dirty-diaper bin needs emptying. Tenaciously trying to succeed at multi-tasking and time management, the only thing you can manage to do when the baby naps is to fall asleep yourself! Showering, cooking, and going outside for errands is something you leave for when your significant other' is around to help.

For most new mothers, the first few months after having a baby are an emotional and physical roller-coaster ride, with their feelings swinging between joy at beholding a new life in their arms, and anxiety at juggling their new responsibilities amid a changed routine. Even if she's had babies before, nothing can fully prepare her for another one coming into her family - it needs tremendous adjustment over a period of months, and major doses of willful patience.

To say that urban life has changed over the past two decades would be a gross understatement. Nuclear families living in smaller, confined spaces are the norm now, with little interference from neighbors or distant relatives. Because of everyone's increasingly busy schedule, no one has the time to look after someone else. The lack of meddling in each other's lives is a positive by-product of this modern-day urbanization; however, the lack of moral support for others in their time of need, is not.

Most new mothers face isolation after childbirth, as a result. Their mother or another relative might come for a few weeks, cooking and freezing some meals, and cleaning her house. However, after the latter leaves, the new mother feels forlornly lost and alone, having to face long, "depressing" days on her own with the baby, after her husband and children have left for work or school.

To say the least, every new mother needs support in the form of positively reassuring conversation amid the company of sympathetic, encouraging women who have "been there, done that". She needs to know that other women are also experiencing what she is going through; that they face the same challenges and problems. She needs to vent her frustrations, share her concerns, and exchange notes with other mothers. All of this can only be done by forming a mothers' support group.

Get online and join a virtual mothers' group:

There are many ways of discussing parenting issues

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