The Holding Time Project Celebrates as Cheshire and Merseyside Mothers’ Stories Reach a Global Audience
October 2026
Improving Me – NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Women’s Health and Maternity Programme has welcomed the remarkable success of the Holding Time digital storytelling initiative they first commissioned at the height of the pandemic, which has reached more than 617,000 YouTube views in the last nine months, demonstrating the growing public appetite for honest conversations about motherhood, breastfeeding and neonatal care.
During the same period, the channel generated 2,400 hours of watch time and attracted 868 new subscribers, taking the channel to almost 1,700 subscribers. The most-viewed films were all funded by Improving Me.
Jo Ward the Improving Me Social Prescribing Lead explains, ‘The Holding Time programme was co-produced with lead artist Lisa Creagh and mothers from Cheshire and Merseyside. Designed to enable the NHS to draw on women’s lived experience and their insights, to address chronically low and declining breastfeeding rates, it simultaneously created an invaluable resource to combat inappropriate, often misleading and highly targeted marketing campaigns promoting breast-milk substitutes by commercial formula companies; whilst connecting new and experienced mums to each other in their own homes and on the high street with accessible health information and advice’.
The project invited mothers from across the region to share their experiences through portrait photography, filmed interviews, writing workshops and public touring exhibitions.
The most successful film to date, Ellen’s story, has received 200,000 views in the last six months, helping to bring the realities of breastfeeding and early motherhood to audiences far beyond the region.
The success of the project demonstrates the growing role that arts and culture can play in improving women’s health, reducing isolation and creating meaningful conversations around maternal wellbeing. Rather than presenting clinical information alone, Holding Time places the lived experiences of local parents at the centre of public discussion.
Keeley McClennan, Engagement Lead at Improving Me, NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Women’s Health and Maternity Programme, said:
“Nowadays, more infants and young children are fed ultra processed formula milk than ever before. This reflects well-funded, sophisticated, and highly targeted commercial formula company marketing campaigns, which typically oversimplify parenting challenges and needs, distilling complexity into something one product, milk formula, can somehow miraculously resolve.
Commercial milk formula marketing is a multifaceted, powerful system of influence that generates demand and sales of its products at the expense of the health and rights of families, women, and children.
We worked with the Holding Time Project with one ambition: to fight fire with fire by playing the formula companies at their own game. Together we’ve created a powerful resource to combat misinformation about breastfeeding and disinformation about formula. So, we are delighted to see the extraordinary reach of the Holding Time project, which can only help more women and their families make informed choices that reflect real needs.
The Holding Time films demonstrate the power of creativity to connect people with real experiences of pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding. By enabling parents to tell their own stories, the project is helping to increase understanding, challenge misconceptions and support conversations about women’s health that too often remain unheard.’
The popularity of the interviews has reinforced the value of creative storytelling as part of Improving Me’s wider commitment to improving women’s health and maternity experiences across Cheshire and Merseyside. The films continue to reach new audiences months after publication, creating an enduring resource for parents, health professionals and the wider public.
This work sits alongside ,The 51%, the powerful programme led by Dr Rachel New, where women’s lived experience has resulted in highly informative podcasts focused on women’s health and a women’s writing programme, designed to address stigma and taboos, and increase awareness of women’s health challenges.
The next phase of Holding Time will build on this success through the development of an artist-designed virtual reality experience for mothers experiencing neonatal intensive care, alongside the expansion of the Liverpool Milk Trail, enabling more families to discover the city’s cultural venues while listening to the real stories of local parents. The Liverpool Milk trail will be launched on Saturday November 21 at 10:00am at Liverpool Central Library to mark Baby Week. Further information -coming soon.
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Notes for Editors
About Improving Me
Improving Me is the NHS Women’s Health and Maternity (WHaM) Programme for Cheshire and Merseyside, established to improve women’s health, maternity care and infant outcomes across the region. The programme has been through many transformations and reconfigurations over the last ten years. Initially established as an NHS vanguard and early adopter site in 2015 with a commitment to innovation and working differently. Prevention and health creation are front and centre stage. The programme develops safe, high-quality, clinically effective and sustainable services while ensuring women’s voices shape future healthcare.
Web: https://www.improvingme.org.uk/community/
Email: wham.engagement@cheshireandmerseyside.nhs.uk
About Holding Time
Holding Time is an award-winning creative health project by artist Lisa Creagh, exploring contemporary motherhood through portrait photography, oral history, film, creative writing, animation and public art. Working with the NHS, cultural organisations and other stakeholders, Creagh has built a picture of breastfeeding across the UK, with projects based in five cities and counting.
Between 2021 and 2026, the Cheshire and Merseyside programme has included:
- Co-created portrait photography with local mothers recruited through Improving Me, grassroots organisations and public open calls.
- Video interviews documenting lived experiences of breastfeeding, neonatal care, infant loss and early parenthood.
- Creative writing workshops and public events.
- A touring exhibition across Liverpool University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, including the Royal Liverpool Hospital, Aintree University Hospital and Broadgreen Hospital.
- A permanent archive of maternal stories available through the Holding Time YouTube channel.
- Collaboration with clinicians, Infant Feeding Teams, community organisations and maternal mental health partners.
The project forms part of Improving Me’s commitment to ensuring women’s lived experience informs future maternity services and supports wider conversations about maternal wellbeing and women’s health.
The next phase of the project will relaunch and expand the Liverpool Milk Trail, first developed in 2021. The redesigned trail will include a beautifully illustrated printed map distributed across 10 cultural venues in Liverpool’s city centre. Families will be invited to explore museums, galleries and public spaces while accessing embedded questions on a paper map which also provides the opportunity to link to audio stories from local mothers via QR codes.
The Milk Trail will test how cultural walking routes can strengthen parents’ sense of belonging, encourage family engagement with the city’s cultural offer and create a welcoming environment for babies and young children. For more information about Holding Time visit the project’s YouTube channel or contact Lisa Creagh directly at info@holdingtime.org
Lisa Creagh said:
“The response has been extraordinary. These films show there is a huge appetite for honest conversations about becoming a parent. Mothers are not simply looking for advice—they want to hear real experiences from other families. Every view represents another opportunity to reduce isolation and build understanding.”
The channel’s rapid growth is helping shape the next phase of Holding Time, which will explore new forms of creative health through immersive technologies, AI-assisted portraiture and expanded digital storytelling, while continuing to place parents’ lived experience at the centre of public conversation.
With over six hundred thousand views in six months, Holding Time has become one of the UK’s fastest-growing independent platforms for maternal storytelling, demonstrating the growing role of arts and culture in improving public understanding of women’s health and family life.
About Food Poverty and Formula
Formula prices had risen 18–36% between December 2021 and December 2023, depending on brand, while the average retail price of some formulas increased by more than 25%. Just three companies account for more than 90% of supply.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/infant-formula-cma-sets-out-concerns-and-potential-solutions
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