After the Birth, in Freshwater: Appointments That Fit a Newborn

The practical version, because new parents have no capacity for anything else.

Bring the baby. The room is set up for it. You can feed mid-appointment, the whole thing can stop for twenty minutes, and if you have to reschedule from the car park because the morning collapsed, that is fine and there is no fee. Freshwater is ten streets from Balgowlah and about twenty from Manly, so the trip is short — which is the main thing when leaving the house takes an hour of preparation.

What we treat. The neck and shoulders of someone who has held a baby in the same position for six weeks. The low back and the pelvis. Wrists and thumbs, which take a beating. Exhaustion. And sleep, in whatever fragments are available.

What we refer, and push. Pelvic health physiotherapy for leaking, heaviness or dragging, pain with sex, or abdominal separation — effective, specific, and badly under-used. An IBCLC lactation consultant for feeding difficulty. Your child health nurse. Your GP for iron and ferritin, thyroid function, vitamin D and B12, which are missed constantly and explain most of the exhaustion people assume is just parenthood.

Mood. Perinatal anxiety and depression are common and treatable, and they affect partners too. PANDA is 1300 726 306. On the Northern Beaches, where everyone appears to be coping on the beach at eight in the morning, this can be harder to say out loud. It is more common than it looks.

One thing about the first twelve weeks. They are triage, not a new normal. Almost everything people worry they are doing badly in that period is a problem of sleep deprivation rather than of competence, and it changes. Knowing that in advance does not make it easier, but it stops people drawing permanent conclusions from a temporary state.

Urgent: heavy bleeding, fever, a hot painful breast, severe headache, calf pain, breathlessness, or any thought of harming yourself or the baby — 000.