Navigating the NICU Journey: Insights from Dr. Frankie Harrison

In this episode, Dr. Frankie Harrison shares her personal experience and professional insights into the often overlooked and challenging journey of parents whose babies require care in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Dr. Harrison recounts her own journey of unexpectedly facing prematurity and NICU care, highlighting the initial confusion and lack of understanding she experienced. She reflects on the common struggles parents face, including guilt, grief, and traumatic memories, shedding light on the long-term impact of the NICU experience on parental mental health.

Dr. Harrison emphasizes the need for greater awareness, education, and support for NICU parents, lamenting the current lack of preparation and resources available. She discusses the importance of addressing mental health needs and providing ongoing support beyond the immediate NICU discharge period. Dr. Harrison advocates for systemic changes in maternity care to better prepare and support parents facing NICU journeys, emphasizing the importance of early intervention and comprehensive support services.

This is a must-listen episode for any soon-to-be or current parent of multiples who wants to be informed and learn how to deal with the challenges of a NICU stay.

You can connect with Frankie here:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/miraclemoonuk/
Podcast:  https://open.spotify.com/show/4OdVSVmIGW5638zg3p9Hqj
Website: https://www.miraclemoon.co.uk/

Thanks for listening! If you are a soon-to-be or current parent of multiples, be sure to head over to my website http://www.fiercekindmama.com to get my FREE resources designed specifically for you!

Be sure to follow me on Instagram and Facebook too.

Credits:
Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!):
https://uppbeat.io/t/aylex/with-you
License code: YLMJTQCPKRANEOVB

Transcript

00:00:06 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Welcome to the Fierce Kind Mama of Multiples podcast. This podcast is for anyone raising multiples, twins, triplets or more. I speak to inspiring parents of multiples who have healed from unexpected pregnancies and birthing experiences and who candidly share the highs and lows raising multiples.

00:00:27 Dr Cristina Cavezza

I also speak to the professionals that work with multiple birth families. Together we cover the practicalities of raising more than one baby at a time, as well as enhancing the emotional well-being of caregivers and children alike.

00:00:41 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Come join us as we laugh, cry and share our personal and professional wisdom on all things multiples. I'm your host, Dr Cristina Cavezza, and I am a Fierce Kind Mama of Multiples.

00:01:00 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Welcome to the show. Before we get started, I wanted to let you know about a new free resource I have available for those of you who are pregnant with multiples.

00:01:10 Dr Cristina Cavezza

If you want to learn more about how to be fully prepared for your multiple worth journey, then this guide is for you.

00:01:16 Dr Cristina Cavezza

In this guide, I take a holistic approach to help you prepare physically, financially, and emotionally. And if you know anyone else who's pregnant with multiples, please tell them to head over to my website, fiercekindmama.com, and click on the free Resources tab. The link is also available in the podcast show notes.

00:01:38 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Today I'm speaking with Doctor Frankie Harrison.

00:01:41 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Frankie is a clinical psychologist who specialises in supporting parents who have had neonatal experiences.

00:01:50 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Frankie had her first baby at 31 weeks due to preeclampsia.

00:01:54 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Using her lived experience as well as professional psychological knowledge, Frankie aims to spread awareness of NICU and help NICU parents feel less alone.

00:02:06 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Frankie provides free psychological content on her social media platforms and creates a safe online space for parents to connect, make sense of their emotions, and validate their individual journeys.

00:02:19 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Her company is called Miracle Moon.

00:02:22 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Miracle Moon provides free resources blog posts, a podcast products, workshops, group, and individual therapy.

00:02:32 Dr Cristina Cavezza

You can find out more about Miracle Moon on Instagram. The handle is @miraclemoonuk or at their website www.miraclemoon.co.uk. Those details are in the podcast show notes for you. In this interview you're going to hear Frankie

00:02:51 Dr Cristina Cavezza

and I talk about the main struggles that parents who have been on an NICU journey experience.

00:02:59 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Frankie also shares with us what is lacking in terms of support for NICU parents, and she offers some wonderful advice to multiple birth parents who may be worried about a possible NICU stay or who may have already navigated a NICU journey.

00:03:18 Dr Cristina Cavezza

I believe given the relatively high rates of prematurity in multiple births and the long term consequences of a NICU stay both for parents and their children, that we need to have more general awareness of the challenges these families face.

00:03:35 Dr Cristina Cavezza

And so I was really excited that Frankie agreed to speak to me and share her personal story as well as her extensive experience in supporting NICU families.

00:03:47 Dr Cristina Cavezza

I hope that you get a lot out of this episode and if you have any questions for me or Frankie, please do get in touch.

00:03:56 Dr Cristina Cavezza

So, welcome, Frankie, to the show. 

00:03:59 Dr Frankie Harrison

Thank you very much for having me.

00:04:01 Dr Cristina Cavezza

It's yes, it's lovely to connect with you.

00:04:03 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Tell us a bit.

00:04:04 Dr Cristina Cavezza

About yourself and the work that you do.

00:04:08 Dr Frankie Harrison

So I am. I'm a clinical psychologist. UM, I'm based in the UK I.

00:04:15 Dr Frankie Harrison

Previously worked in older adult psychology um and then I got pregnant with my first son um and the pregnancy was fairly turbulent and the the.

00:04:32 Dr Frankie Harrison

Of opening in into the pregnancy was was quite difficult and I guess talking about like multiples. So my one of my the the first experiences at around 10 weeks was that I actually lost a twin and and kind of went through that experience coming into the pregnancy.

00:04:53 Dr Frankie Harrison

Starting with loss, but also with having a child. It was a very, very surreal, very odd, odd experience.

00:05:00 Dr Frankie Harrison

Um I then kind of had all of the pregnancy symptoms that you could possibly have and um  around the kind of end of my second trimester I developed high blood pressure which then escalated into preeclampsia.

00:05:19 Dr Frankie Harrison

So I was in hospital for quite a big chunk of time trying to control my blood pressure um but what...During that experience, what I what I felt is that people weren't really talking to me about what was happening. They weren't really telling me that they were looking out for.

00:05:39 Dr Frankie Harrison

preeclampsia here. They weren't really telling me that they were looking out.

00:05:44 Dr Frankie Harrison

That I could give birth kind of prematurely. What neonatal care would look like, the conversations just weren't really happening until, like, a couple of days beforehand. And then people were like, OK, we need to, you know, the baby needs to come.

00:05:57 Dr Frankie Harrison

Now.

00:05:58 Dr Frankie Harrison

So I I really knew very little about neonatal care, about preeclampsia. 

00:06:04 Dr Frankie Harrison

About prematurity and all of that.

00:06:08 Dr Frankie Harrison

So I felt like I was kind of thrown into to that world. My first experience of being a.

00:06:13 Dr Frankie Harrison

Parent.

00:06:14 Dr Frankie Harrison

Um and then we were in neonatal care for just over 5 weeks and um it was up and down. But I the thing that I kind of I felt when I.

00:06:28 Dr Frankie Harrison

And left was that I started to look for people who were supporting people or talking about some of the things that I was thinking and feeling. And I couldn't find it, so I couldn't really find anyone who was saying the things that were going through my.

00:06:41 Dr Frankie Harrison

Mind.

00:06:42 Dr Frankie Harrison

So I started posting about it.

00:06:45 Dr Frankie Harrison

1st just on my kind of my own page um and I started to gain connections with some other people who had been through it at a similar time with me over Instagram. It was also around the time of the pandemic, so people were kind of doing more online connecting because we couldn't do the kind of in person mum.

00:07:05 Dr Frankie Harrison

Connecting um and then I found another parent called Georgie, who also had her baby at.

00:07:13 Dr Frankie Harrison

31 weeks.

00:07:14 Dr Frankie Harrison

Um and we started connecting and talking and she's a graphic designer. I'm a clinical psychologist and we kind of said, should we should create a page? Should we just start something and just start talking about this stuff and it's escalated from there. So now we've got our company called Miracle Moon, which is.

00:07:35 Dr Frankie Harrison

Mainly a kind of Instagram account that supports the community.

00:07:41 Dr Frankie Harrison

I do one to one therapy with people including EMDR and kind of trauma work um and that's over the past. So four years, it's just grown and it keeps kind of growing and we're doing things like podcasts and trying to support people as much as we can with like groups and.

00:08:00 Dr Frankie Harrison

Advice and resources and yes, so it's it's just the beginning really of it. But it is, it's growing and it it feels like a really, really needed resource really.

00:08:12 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Absolutely. As you were speaking, I think it's such a much needed resource given what I know just in speaking with many multiple birth families.

00:08:20 Dr Cristina Cavezza

How long ago?

00:08:21 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Did this happen for you when you gave birth, when you had the premature birth?

00:08:26 Dr Frankie Harrison

Yes. So it's October 2019.

00:08:29 Dr Frankie Harrison

That it happened. So. Yeah. So yeah, so my. Yeah, my preemie is now 4 and a bit and.

00:08:29 Dr Cristina Cavezza

2019.

00:08:31 Dr Cristina Cavezza

OK.

00:08:39 Dr Frankie Harrison

Yeah, he's.

00:08:40 Dr Frankie Harrison

He's doing incredibly jumping around all over the place and just. Yeah, he's yeah. Amazing.

00:08:46 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Yeah. So that, I mean you were saying you were, you know, you're a clinical psychologist, but you prior to that happening, you weren't actually working in the perinatal space or you weren't working in that area. You had kind of.

00:09:00 Dr Cristina Cavezza

No knowledge of this.

00:09:01 Dr Cristina Cavezza

How did that? How did it?

00:09:04 Dr Cristina Cavezza

When did you first become aware that all there there's something you know, potentially there's a complication here with the pregnancy.

00:09:14 Dr Frankie Harrison

To be honest, I think I was quite.

00:09:18 Dr Frankie Harrison

Naive when it was happening, so I remember being in hospital and I was.

00:09:22 Dr Frankie Harrison

In hospital for like.

00:09:24 Dr Frankie Harrison

A week and they were trying to control my blood pressure and bring it down and.

00:09:30 Dr Frankie Harrison

At that point, they were like we might need to keep you in until you give birth. And I remember thinking, I'm going to have like 11 weeks being in hospital that feels a bit, you know, but and I just didn't really have the thought that.

00:09:46 Dr Frankie Harrison

You know this was going to have, like, prematurity or NICU I, I really knew very, very little until I was there. So I think it wasn't until maybe a couple of days before like I remember being put in the high dependency unit for me and my brain was just like.

00:10:06 Dr Frankie Harrison

Why am I here? Is it because they don't have beds in the in the other? Like I didn't quite understand the gravity of what it was that I was going through and I don't know if that was a protective thing, but I I don't think I really understood the gravity of it until probably it it happened.

00:10:24 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Do you think that that's partly because it wasn't explained to you, was it? Was anybody, you know, talking about this with you or do you think it was you kind of shutting off and and you know just?

00:10:35 Dr Frankie Harrison

I think it.

00:10:36 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Not.

00:10:36 Dr Frankie Harrison

Was a bit. Yeah, I think it's a bit both and no one really had the conversation with me that they thought it was preeclampsia. What preeclampsia meant, what it was they were telling me things like, just be aware. So if you, if you get headaches, we're gonna keep monitoring your urine and. But. But they didn't really say why.

00:10:56 Dr Frankie Harrison

And I.

00:10:57 Dr Frankie Harrison

I.

00:10:58 Dr Frankie Harrison

I wasn't well, so I wasn't in a a place to be able to kind of like Google it or figure out what was going on with me. I was just unwell.

00:11:07 Dr Frankie Harrison

Like.

00:11:08 Dr Frankie Harrison

My head was hurting so much I couldn't really open my eyes so I don't feel like I got the information that I needed, but I also think that there was definitely a part of me that was just.

00:11:19 Dr Frankie Harrison

Blocking.

00:11:20 Dr Frankie Harrison

Uhm, what was happening really?

00:11:23 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Yeah. And you know, you've worked with a lot of people now who've had similar NICU journey. Yeah. Or who've been through the NICU, what do you see are the main struggles that parents face when they have.

00:11:41 Dr Cristina Cavezza

They give birth prematurely and they end up.

00:11:45 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Having children in the NICU.

00:11:47 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Babies in the NICU.

00:11:48 Dr Frankie Harrison

Yeah, I think that there are so many common themes and I think that that is partly why I'm like, let's get this information out there because so many people feel these things. So whenever I talk about common feelings, common thoughts that come up, I get so many people.

00:12:07 Dr Frankie Harrison

Go. Me too.

00:12:08 Dr Frankie Harrison

I feel this too. I feel this too.

00:12:09 Dr Frankie Harrison

No ones talking about it.

00:12:10 Dr Frankie Harrison

So things like guilt is often a really big one. It's blaming yourself in some kind of way or feeling guilty about the separation in some kind of way.

00:12:24 Dr Frankie Harrison

Grief is a huge one, um and it's that kind of disenfranchised grief which maybe people don't really recognise. It's not so much losing, you know your baby, but it is losing the experiences that you thought that you were going.

00:12:38 Dr Frankie Harrison

To have.

00:12:41 Dr Frankie Harrison

Or, you know, things like being on the unit and like, for me, a brief while I was on the unit was that I didn't get to dress my baby for the first time I walked in and he was in.

00:12:52 Dr Frankie Harrison

Clothes and and that was. That was quite a big grief for me, but you can grief things like you know the.

00:13:01 Dr Frankie Harrison

The the the.

00:13:02 Dr Frankie Harrison

The third trimester the birth experience you thought you were going to have, not having the skin to skin. So many things with with grief. And then I.

00:13:11 Dr Frankie Harrison

Think there are.

00:13:14 Dr Frankie Harrison

The kind of traumatic memories that come up and a lot of that is around separation

00:13:20 Dr Frankie Harrison

Between the two of you quite often not feeling safe yourself or not feeling like your baby is safe, feeling helpless or powerless within it. Not feeling like you're in control. And I think that NICU does a really good job at giving you.

00:13:37 Dr Frankie Harrison

A. A kind of a sense of control when you're in it's own monitoring, you know the the beeping, the all of the things, the checking so that you they get you to do all of those kinds of things and it quite often is that when people go home they continue with that.

00:13:56 Dr Frankie Harrison

As a kind of sense of control. So then that becomes very difficult because anxiety levels are still high. People are kind of operating as if their babies are still.

00:14:07 Dr Frankie Harrison

In need of that kind of support and a super hyper vigilance and are doing those kind of like anxiety related behaviours by that point but are no longer helpful and we see things like health anxiety quite often. So anxiety about your child's health, there's there's so many you could actually write a book about everything.

00:14:26 Dr Frankie Harrison

That there are so many, so many common feelings.

00:14:30 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Yeah. And I think when you were saying that, I was saying you could write a book. I know. And just speaking to the families that I speak to the multiple birth families.

00:14:39 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Even when I when you were talking about separation, you know, I know that a common experience can be or when I say common, I suppose it happens more frequently in in multiple birth families where one baby might actually be in another hospital, then the other baby or babies, you know, and you can just imagine.

00:14:55 Dr Frankie Harrison

Yeah.

00:15:01 Dr Cristina Cavezza

The logistics of that, if you already have children at home, let's say.

00:15:04 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Or you're trying then to, you know, visit each baby like it's just. I can. I mean, one can just imagine the sense of.

00:15:15 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Guilt that a parent would feel in that circumstance, not being able to be they can't be in two places at once, right? Literally so.

00:15:22 Dr Frankie Harrison

No, no.

00:15:25 Dr Cristina Cavezza

The other thing.

00:15:26 Dr Cristina Cavezza

I hear multiple birth families speak about often.

00:15:30 Dr Cristina Cavezza

And what I've often wondered about too, in terms from, you know, a research perspective is the idea around attachment and building an attachment to your babies because.

00:15:42 Dr Cristina Cavezza

In the case of multiple birth families, sometimes the babies are whisked away.

00:15:48 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Quite quickly after the birth and then they go into the NICU, so there's not that kind of time that we would in, I guess the traditional sense that you have that the mother or the parents would have for bonding, right? And building that kind of.

00:16:05 Dr Cristina Cavezza

The hormonal bond, you know that just comes with becoming a parent if you like. And.

00:16:10 Dr Cristina Cavezza

I've heard sometimes parents speak about.

00:16:14 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Almost seeing their babies like little patients in the hospital.

00:16:19 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Rather than their babies like, they don't feel that connection. Is that something you've heard? Is that something you've.

00:16:26 Dr Frankie Harrison

It's something I felt. Yeah, definitely.

00:16:30 Dr Frankie Harrison

I think there is such a disconnect. 

00:16:32 Dr Frankie Harrison

Quite often the experience is that you give birth. However you give birth and your baby is taken. You might see them for a split second. I can't even remember seeing my baby. And then there was separation and it was separation for like a day.

00:16:52 Dr Frankie Harrison

So it it.

00:16:53 Dr Frankie Harrison

Your brain just cannot comprehend what's happened because one minute you're pregnant and then you're not, and then you don't have your baby with you and you're not really sure where they are. You're thrown into the.

00:17:04 Dr Frankie Harrison

That fight flight freeze fawn bit that kind of trauma response bit and for me it was very much that freeze bit of just disconnect like what is going on. I felt like I was underwater and and.

00:17:18 Dr Frankie Harrison

Then you walk into the unit or get wheeled into the unit and you're like which one is my baby? Like you? You're not even really sure which one your baby is. You then see your baby. There's physical distance there, because they're often in an incubator. They're quite often covered in wires or tubes or have their eyes covered if they've got the jaundice.

00:17:38 Dr Frankie Harrison

light on. 

00:17:39 Dr Frankie Harrison

And I remember them saying, does he have a name and me being?

00:17:43 Dr Frankie Harrison

Like I I.

00:17:44 Dr Frankie Harrison

Don't. I haven't seen his face like, how am I supposed to name him? Like, I don't really know who he is yet. And so it took us a long time to name him because I because I think it took me a long time to connect. I didn't get that sudden rush of love.

00:18:00 Dr Frankie Harrison

And I know that a lot of parents don't, but it was a trickle. A trickle of love, that kind of built over time and and things like.

00:18:10 Dr Frankie Harrison

Skin to skin when it was possible. That kind of kangaroo care recreating that.

00:18:15 Dr Frankie Harrison

I guess kind of quote, quote unquote kind of golden hour in your own way. So doing that skin to skin, doing the, the smelling, the touching, the feeding looks different because quite often with a premature baby, you have to feed through a tube and express. But being by the incubator and expressing.

00:18:37 Dr Frankie Harrison

And.

00:18:38 Dr Frankie Harrison

Kind of. If you can feeding them while they are on you with the tube and they talk about having things like bonding squares, which is where you put a little piece of fabric next to the baby and you have one on mum and then you swap them over so that you can have the scent.

00:18:55 Dr Frankie Harrison

Talking, singing, reading, which again took me a long time to build up, to feel confident in doing and and looking after them. So things like changing their nappies or wiping their eyes or cleaning their mouth and just little things and a lot. And it built over time that bond.

00:19:14 Dr Frankie Harrison

But you can you can.

00:19:16 Dr Frankie Harrison

And definitely build that bond while you are in the unit. It just looks very different.

00:19:22 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Yeah, absolutely. And one of the things that I was thinking about when you were talking was the effects of all of this like.

00:19:31 Dr Cristina Cavezza

We've spoken about the immediate effects where you might feel a bit of a disconnect disconnect and it takes some time to kind of build that up. But do we know what the long term?

00:19:42 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Effects of an NICU journey are

00:19:44 Dr Cristina Cavezza

on parents in terms of or families in general. But in terms of well-being or, you know, capacity to attend to the babies needs, you know, once you bring them home, is there do you have a?

00:19:58 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Sense of that?

00:20:00 Dr Frankie Harrison

So some research that was done by Bliss, which is a charity in the UK.

00:20:08 Dr Frankie Harrison

Found that 80% of parents said that they struggled with their mental health, but only 40% of them actually accessed help. So it's a huge amount of parents who are struggling with their mental health and another kind of start is that it comes out that between 40 to 70% of people have PTSD after being through a NICU experience.

00:20:28 Dr Frankie Harrison

And I think again, it's not something that is spoken about the impact of NICU. People kind of assume you're in NICU and then it's done and then

00:20:38 Dr Frankie Harrison

You know you're out. Your baby's fine. You're fine. And you know, I literally had that said to me with a health visitor. Like, are you over that now? And. And that was like, six weeks after being out. And I remember.

00:20:49 Dr Frankie Harrison

Just saying no, I'm not.

00:20:52 Dr Frankie Harrison

And and it it takes a while and I don't think you've ever really truly get over it.

00:20:58 Dr Frankie Harrison

It's part of your experience and.

00:21:00 Dr Frankie Harrison

It.

00:21:00 Dr Frankie Harrison

Does change the way that you parent, maybe in terms of that hyper vigilance being there more maybe being

00:21:09 Dr Frankie Harrison

Slightly more avoidant struggling with that bond with that. With that connection, a little bit more or kind of going the other way, and it being like super, super connected and feeling like you need to, like overcompensate for it as well, so.

00:21:24 Dr Frankie Harrison

It in terms of the attachment you can you can very much develop that secure attachment, but I think it's so important to be able to address some of the mental health.

00:21:35 Dr Frankie Harrison

Stuff first to be able to do that.

00:21:39 Dr Cristina Cavezza

I think those statistics that you mentioned are quite stark and sadly I think I feel as though or I wonder, you know, if a lot of that could be prevented. Like if a lot of this is preventable, if we had more awareness, if we had.

00:21:43 Dr Frankie Harrison

Yeah.

00:21:58 Dr Cristina Cavezza

More education, more support.

00:22:02 Dr Cristina Cavezza

So when you were speaking on my mind, went to what do you think is lacking in terms of support for NICU parents?

00:22:12 Dr Frankie Harrison

So much it feels like a forgotten.

00:22:17 Dr Frankie Harrison

Part of the maternity world, and I think it's because the units are separate to the maternity ward and so it is almost like the baby then just goes to NICU and then it's.

00:22:30 Dr Frankie Harrison

It you know it isn't within the maternity world so much in the UK it is changing and it that is positive. So they start. So they have things in the UK called maternity voice partnerships where they're getting.

00:22:45 Dr Frankie Harrison

Kind of information from parents to help change the maternity services, and they're slowly becoming neonatal maternity voices partnerships and that is such a huge positive step because it means that the voices of neonatal parents are kind of coming coming through.

00:23:01 Dr Frankie Harrison

Now.

00:23:02

But.

00:23:03 Dr Frankie Harrison

All the way through in terms.

00:23:05 Dr Frankie Harrison

Of when you have your appointments with your midwives, it's not spoken about in any kind of way, and the response that I've quite often got in the antenatal world is we don't want to scare.

00:23:19 Dr Frankie Harrison

Parents but but for example, if you know that you are having multiples it there is a 40% chance of you needing neonatal care and the the feedback that I've gotten from people in my community, is it still wasn't spoken about, I wasn't prepared for what it was. So there needs to be a change.

00:23:40 Dr Frankie Harrison

In how we're talking to parents, we're not. We don't need to be scaring them. We just need to be providing them with the facts and then just going and hear some more information if you need it. Here is where you can go for support if you need it. Just that there's an element of preparation.

00:23:55 Dr Frankie Harrison

And then I think it's, you know, the whole way through kind of post natally as well the contact that you have with health visitors, GP's there needs to be training there in support. There needs to be more mental health support. So quite often from what I see especially.

00:24:15 Dr Frankie Harrison

Is the NICU parents don't actually kind of feel the effect of NICU. Maybe until like 9 to 12 months after giving birth.

00:24:25 Dr Frankie Harrison

Because I think they're just on that adrenaline and they're just doing that like 1 foot in front of the other fight flight. Maybe there's other hospital admissions, and it isn't until that kind of point maybe on like the 1st birthday that they're like, whoa, what did they just go through? And that's when they're trying to access support. And that's when the perinatal support.

00:24:44

Stops.

00:24:45 Dr Frankie Harrison

So in the UK it's for the first year.

00:24:48 Dr Frankie Harrison

Yeah. So it's almost like they missed the boat a little bit. And I also think there's a part of being like.

00:24:55 Dr Frankie Harrison

Is this just what parenthood is supposed to be like? Are you supposed to parenthood traumatised like I think people don't really realise that there's stuff that you can do to try and, you know, help yourself and process some of this stuff and it doesn't have to be like this. The anxiety doesn't have to be sky high, so a lot a lot needs to change.

00:25:16 Dr Frankie Harrison

And it's a big job, but I am just hoping that there was something that like we can do within that at least.

00:25:24 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Hi there. Fierce Kind Mama. Sorry to interrupt the discussion, but I have something to share with you that I know you're going to love. We're often told that parenting can be hard, and whether you're soon to be or current parent of multiples, there is going to come a time when you will probably feel stressed, overwhelmed or even worried about the future.

00:25:46 Dr Cristina Cavezza

That's why I've developed a free guide for parents, just like you with my 5 top tips for handling stress and overwhelm, you can download it now from my website fiercekindmama.com.

00:26:01 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Yeah, when you were mentioning that period of that that first year, I think that's such an important point. I think that's been my experience as well too. They if you kind of you make it through the first year, it's like you've survived. Do you know you? Yeah. If that's it like you, I mean it's done. It's you've made it. There's should be no turning back now. And I think that it's.

00:26:20 Dr Cristina Cavezza

That's an important point that you make that often. It's not until.

00:26:26 Dr Cristina Cavezza

The babies or the children, you know, in the case of multiple birth families, they're older. Where we actually then have the free. You actually have a little bit more time and freedom to, and then it hits us. It's like we realise.

00:26:37 Dr Cristina Cavezza

I'm going into the shops and I see this thing that reminds me of maybe the hospital and I'm getting anxious. I don't understand why this is happening and it's some. It's often not until much later that parents start seeking, in my experience anyway, they start seeking help. Because all of a sudden they're getting these symptoms that don't seem to make sense.

00:26:57 Dr Cristina Cavezza

But if when we dig a little deeper and you asked them about what was the birth like what?

00:27:01 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Well, what did you experience you like? Oh, you know, this kind of seems. I wonder if this is related.

00:27:06 Dr Frankie Harrison

And people are bringing things to me and it's like, you know.

00:27:08 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Yeah.

00:27:13 Dr Frankie Harrison

I I I.

00:27:14 Dr Frankie Harrison

Feel like I need to control everything like I feel like I'm really. I really struggle with uncertainty, for example.

00:27:21 Dr Frankie Harrison

And it's like, OK, is there, is that something that you felt like when you were in NICU and it's like  yeah big time and quite often it's the thing that they struggled with the most in NICU, which is kind of coming out in later life in, in parenting.

00:27:37 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Yeah. Coming out in other ways. 

00:27:41 Dr Cristina Cavezza

When you were speaking, you also mentioned the training of staff and that the importance of that, and I was actually thinking about.

00:27:49 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Yeah, I imagine that for the staff that work in the NICU

00:27:54 Dr Frankie Harrison

Mhm.

00:27:55 Dr Cristina Cavezza

That they have, you know, I imagine that start an easy job and I wonder if they are adequately supported. Like, do you think they have?

00:28:05 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Or do you? Do you have any opinion on what you think they need?

00:28:09 Dr Frankie Harrison

Ohh yes I.

00:28:09 Dr Cristina Cavezza

To better know.

00:28:11 Dr Frankie Harrison

Yeah. Yeah. So we know that the level of trauma with staff working the NICU is high, it's it, it can be a highly traumatic environment. They're, you know, having to deal with very, very poorly babies. Unfortunately, at times death, you know, procedures and.

00:28:32 Dr Frankie Harrison

Parents mental health. So we know that quite often it is traumatised people looking after traumatised people in that situation.

00:28:39 Dr Frankie Harrison

Again, in the UK, things are slowly changing, so they are employing more and more psychologists to be working on the units, which is a huge change and so needed and one of their main roles is going to be supporting the staff and with their mental health, with their trauma and there's conversations about being able to do things like.

00:29:01 Dr Frankie Harrison

A type of like group EMDR so that if they've been through traumatic experiences, being able to support them and process some of.

00:29:08 Dr Frankie Harrison

The things that they've been through.

00:29:10 Dr Frankie Harrison

They definitely, definitely need need more support to be able to do the support for for the parents and for the baby as well.

00:29:20 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Absolutely. And you mentioned EMDR, which I I'm a big fan of the EMDR. I use the EMDR in my work too, but I've never spoken about it. I don't think anyway on this podcast. So I wonder if you could just spend a just briefly, you know, talking about what what is the EMDR

00:29:35 Dr Frankie Harrison

Yeah. So it stands for which I think is.

00:29:38 Dr Frankie Harrison

An absolute mouthful.

00:29:39 Dr Frankie Harrison

Eye movement desensitisation reprocessing, but it is about being able to process your trauma. So when you go through a traumatic experience, it is often an experience that overwhelms your nervous system's ability to cope with that situation.

00:29:56 Dr Frankie Harrison

And what can happen is that your your brain kind of gets stuck. It gets stuck in that traumatic experience, so it can feel a little bit like you've got an elastic band that's just kind of pulling you back, keep pulling you back to that moment it feels.

00:30:09 Dr Frankie Harrison

Like you can't quite move.

00:30:11 Dr Frankie Harrison

With it it you can experience things like flashbacks. You can experience. I talk about kind of having like, emotional flashbacks where you feel the emotions that you did at.

00:30:23 Dr Frankie Harrison

The time as well.

00:30:25 Dr Frankie Harrison

Avoidance that hyper vigilance um and you know any of those kind of symptoms or trauma.

00:30:32 Dr Frankie Harrison

Symptoms rather than just like PTSD, is a bunch of symptoms, and you have to tick all the boxes, but they're all trauma symptoms. So the way that EMDR works is by using eye movement or.

00:30:46 Dr Frankie Harrison

Or any kind of. It's called bilateral stimulation. So where you are accessing both sides of the brain, either eyes moving side to side or tapping side to side at the same time that you go into the memory you kind of.

00:31:01 Dr Frankie Harrison

Kind of let that elastic band go a little bit. You let your brain do what it needs to do to be able to process some of.

00:31:08 Dr Frankie Harrison

Those things. So then when you kind of get to the end of the EMDR process, people are like, OK, this memory doesn't feel as sharp. It doesn't feel as present. It doesn't feel as heavy. It doesn't feel as now it feels like it's a memory. And then what you are seeing is that those symptoms of the hypervigilance and the flashbacks, they're not sleeping and.

00:31:29 Dr Frankie Harrison

All of that reduce as a result of that.

00:31:33 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Yeah, lovely. Lovely explanation. And that's definitely been my experience too in using EMDR with people who have all sorts.

00:31:40 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Of different types.

00:31:41 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Of experiences, but with trauma, is that reporting

00:31:44 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Of it feels.

00:31:45 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Distant. Now you know, it feels like it's something I can put a time and date on and say that happened back then. It's not happening now.

00:31:53 Dr Frankie Harrison

Yes.

00:31:55 Dr Cristina Cavezza

We spoke a little bit about.

00:31:57 Dr Cristina Cavezza

The importance of preparing, preparing for, particularly in a multiple birth pregnancy where we know the rates of prematurity are much higher so.

00:32:08 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Do you think it's a good idea for expectant parents of multiples to visit NICU units and have discussions with their doctors about it? Even before this even looks like a possibility?

00:32:24 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Or do you think that that might actually exacerbate the worry and anxiety that someone who is already might already be having when they find out they're having a high risk, multiple birth pregnancy? What are what is your opinion on that?

00:32:41 Dr Frankie Harrison

I think that.

00:32:42 Dr Frankie Harrison

There is a way of being able to provide information for people in a way that they need. So I think that it needs to be offered and if that person is like, is too anxiety provoking, I can't go there.

00:32:54 Dr Frankie Harrison

Don't go there. Just say to them like, OK, that's absolutely fine. Here is information. If you ever needed it. So you know

00:33:01 Dr Frankie Harrison

Where to go.

00:33:03 Dr Frankie Harrison

If there are people who and I know that there's a lot of people who are like, just give me all the information, give me all the facts so that I know it all. Go with that. So it needs to be a little bit individual in that in that sense, but I think.

00:33:15 Dr Frankie Harrison

One of the things that is really good is that they're starting to do virtual tours of of neonatal units and so on some of the hospitals websites, you can just have a look around on your computer and just have a look.

00:33:27 Dr Frankie Harrison

And see what the unit is like.

00:33:29 Dr Frankie Harrison

But I think that the there was some super like basic stuff and I would include it in a birth plan and that doesn't kind of get included. So if your baby needed neonatal care, things like would you want your birth partner to go with the baby or stay with you um putting

00:33:49 Dr Frankie Harrison

on the birth plan for example, like umm, I would like to be involved in in as many firsts as I possibly can do. There's just some some things that just gently you can just.

00:34:00 Dr Frankie Harrison

Be aware of you. You can know about the fact that you can bond. You can feed, you do have choice. You do have an element of control, and that's the bit that I would want to be giving to people to empower them rather than to scare them.

00:34:17 Dr Cristina Cavezza

I love that you use that word empower because when you were speaking, that's actually what came to my mind was that it's so much more empowering.

00:34:24 Dr Cristina Cavezza

I think when we're given the choice to receive the information, you know, because if if you're not even given the information, you're not even really given a choice to be informed, right unless you decide to doctor Google.

00:34:40 Dr Frankie Harrison

Yeah.

00:34:40 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Go on the Internet and look up all the scary, you know, statistics or whatever you know, or get your yourself in a bit of a head spin because you're like, oh gosh, look.

00:34:47 Dr Cristina Cavezza

At.

00:34:47 Dr Cristina Cavezza

All of this stuff, so yeah.

00:34:49 Dr Cristina Cavezza

I think that that's such an important point.

00:34:52 Dr Cristina Cavezza

What? What would?

00:34:53 Dr Cristina Cavezza

You like parents of multiples who are more likely to experience a premature birth. As we've said, what would you like them to know about the NICU journey?

00:35:02 Dr Frankie Harrison

I think the main thing is the bit of going whatever you feel within it is OK and valid. That is the main thing for me because I remember feeling feelings of jealousy, of kind of bitterness, of anger.

00:35:23 Dr Frankie Harrison

Of grief, of guilt, and all of those things. And I remember feeling so alone in the way that I was feeling there were there were moments of joy. There were moments of connection that also came. But it was that feeling alone in those feelings. And am I the only person who's thinking this? I feel bad for feeling and thinking.

00:35:42 Dr Frankie Harrison

These things so.

00:35:45 Dr Frankie Harrison

Knowing that those feelings are OK, I think is one of the most important things. So for example, around things like discharge quite often people are like I have so many feelings. Like I don't want to leave, but I also want to leave. I'm.

00:36:00 Dr Frankie Harrison

Excited, but I'm scared.

00:36:01 Dr Frankie Harrison

And I think.

00:36:02 Dr Frankie Harrison

People struggle to kind of voice things.

00:36:05 Dr Frankie Harrison

Like that, but as soon as someone else kind of says it's OK and it is normal and let's validate some of that stuff, it just reduces some of that weight.

00:36:15 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Yeah. So part of your work, I imagine with your social media content and is getting the message out there, some of this stuff that we've been talking about, but also kind of bringing community together, right, bringing people together, who've had similar experiences.

00:36:31 Dr Cristina Cavezza

And who can share some of that. You know, this is what I went through. What you're going through, you know, like, I think it normalises and validates, right? What one is going through when you realise, hey, I'm not. I'm not an n = 1 here. There's plenty of other people who are are experiencing the same thing. So that can be reassuring.

00:36:48 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Yeah. Can you tell us about your work? What you, the miracle moon, and and what you do and how you support families?

00:36:55 Dr Frankie Harrison

Yeah. So a big part of it is the Community support and the majority of it we do through Instagram, but we also have a closed Facebook group and that's just about like I post a lot on there.

00:37:11 Dr Frankie Harrison

About some of the common thoughts, the common feelings validating, but also trying to give people some tools that they feel appropriate to do via social media and to be able to support themselves and talking about things like hey, we need to be talking about this in antenatal care. We need to be talking about this, you know, to raise awareness.

00:37:31 Dr Frankie Harrison

As well. So there's that element. We do then have like a podcast where we either have experts or like other therapists or people who have been through the experience themselves as well, we.

00:37:48 Dr Frankie Harrison

Then kind of stepping up a little bit, we're we're doing more things like trying to do courses and guides and e-books and things like that to make the information more accessible to people.

00:38:01 Dr Frankie Harrison

And then again stepping up another level, we have groups. So group work and and I love doing them because it's the connection that you get between people and they end up like setting up a WhatsApp group between them and then end up being a kind of support network for each other and which.

00:38:17 Dr Frankie Harrison

And then it's the one to one work that I do as well. So either EMDR or other types of therapies, whatever people need. So it's kind of we're trying to kind of scale it so that we can give as much free information as possible and then scale it so that it's affordable up to people needing the one to one support.

00:38:37 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Yeah. And is the one I'm imagining the one to one support and the group kind of work is for people local to you people that you can actually see face to face or is this stuff that you do also do online?

00:38:50 Dr Frankie Harrison

Yeah, it's online. The only issue that I have so like I can work with anyone in the world apart from the States because of legal stuff that but I can work with anybody.

00:39:04 Dr Frankie Harrison

Yeah, which is what I again what I love about doing the online stuff is being able to access so many people.

00:39:05 Dr Cristina Cavezza

That's fantastic.

00:39:11 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Yes, yes. And the so your Facebook group and obviously your Instagram is international and that anyone can look you up and and follow you is the Facebook group open to anyone as well?

00:39:23 Dr Cristina Cavezza

OK, what a wonderful.

00:39:25 Dr Frankie Harrison

Absolutely. Yeah. So anyone who's been through that experience and it's just it's a closed group, so that it feels, I guess you can give lots of information on Instagram, but it's all public. So having that closed group just feels a little bit more contained, I think.

00:39:34 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Yes. Yeah.

00:39:38 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Yeah, yeah, that's wonderful. What do you think?

00:39:43 Dr Cristina Cavezza

The general public needs to know, like, do you think there is enough general public awareness of

00:39:49 Dr Cristina Cavezza

NICU and the struggles that families face when they find themselves there.

00:39:56 Dr Frankie Harrison

Again, no, I think that's just the theme of today that there's just not enough awareness. It's just not spoken about enough. I think I think maybe the key thing is to know that when people leave the unit that they are not just automatically over it, there is often an impact on.

00:40:12 Dr Frankie Harrison

People and and to, you know, not having those kind of conversations where, like, but they're here, they're healthy, they're OK like it's behind you. It doesn't feel that way for some parents. And even though they logically know it, they may not feel it in their gut. And being able to talk about it with someone and and being able to say I'm struggling.

00:40:33 Dr Frankie Harrison

Is so important.

00:40:36 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Yeah, yeah. I couldn't agree more.

00:40:40 Dr Cristina Cavezza

If you could give one piece of advice to a multiple birth parent who has had an NICU experience or is pregnant with multiples and is worried about the possibility of an NICU stay. What? What would you tell them?

00:40:58 Dr Frankie Harrison

So much I think. I think what I have.

00:41:03 Dr Frankie Harrison

What comes through a lot in the work that I do with parents of multiples is what we spoke about before of that kind of.

00:41:11 Dr Frankie Harrison

Splitting between the children so whether they're in different units or even if they're in just different incubators and just feeling like you have to give them equal amounts of attention and then maybe when they're home, that bit of feeling like you have to treat them equally in some kind of way.

00:41:31 Dr Frankie Harrison

And if they need hospital admissions

00:41:34 Dr Frankie Harrison

That comes up a huge amount in the.

00:41:36 Dr Frankie Harrison

Work that I do.

00:41:38 Dr Frankie Harrison

So it's that bit of doing like you are doing good enough. You are doing all that you can. You cannot do any more than that. Your children may have different needs. They may have been born at the same time, but they may have different needs, so it's less.

00:41:54 Dr Frankie Harrison

About kind of treating them equally and it's more about responding to the needs that they had and just doing your your best and you are you are doing as best as you possibly can.

00:42:05 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Yeah, that's wonderful. Wonderful piece of advice and such an important message, I think, for really any parent right to remember that we're doing the best we can with what we've what we've got, what we've been given.

00:42:16 Dr Frankie Harrison

Mhm. 

00:42:18 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Where can people

00:42:19 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Find out more about you and your work?

00:42:22 Dr Frankie Harrison

So Instagram is probably the best place, so we're @miraclemoonuk. You can also find us on Facebook with the same and then on our website so www.miraclemoon.co.uk and then you

00:42:37 Dr Frankie Harrison

Can find access to.

00:42:39 Dr Frankie Harrison

Everything that we do on there, our podcast is Miracle Moon as well. So we're we're.

00:42:44 Dr Frankie Harrison

All over the place.

00:42:46 Dr Frankie Harrison

You will find us in some kind of way.

00:42:48 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Yes, wonderful. We'll definitely put those details in the show notes too. Thank you, Frankie. So much for offering your time today. It's been such a pleasure chatting with you.

00:42:58 Dr Frankie Harrison

Thank you. Lovely.

00:43:04 Dr Cristina Cavezza

Thanks for listening to today's episode. If you like what you've heard, then please follow and leave a review so that other expectant and current parents of multiples like yourself can find this podcast and the valuable information it contains. I'd be so very grateful if you left a review

00:43:19 Dr Cristina Cavezza

and shared this with anyone you think could benefit from listening. If you have a particular topic you'd like me to cover on this podcast, feel free to reach out to me via my website fiercekindmama.com.

00:43:31 Dr Cristina Cavezza

New episodes are released every second Wednesday, so we'll see you back here real soon. Any advice and information on this podcast is general only and has been prepared without taking into account your particular circumstances and needs. For tailored, individualised advice, please consult with a qualified professional.