Holding TimeOvercoming the Cultural Barriers to BreastfeedingMaternal Wellbeing Afternoon

Maternal Wellbeing Afternoon

Open Eye Gallery Atrium 8th October 2pm

Improving Me, the Cheshire and Merseyside Women’s Health and Maternity Partnership, is delighted to be working with the Open Eye Gallery and visual artist Lisa Creagh to deliver a Maternal Wellbeing afternoon to mark the countdown to Baby Week 14-20 November. This partnership is inviting organisations across Cheshire and Merseyside to take part in a Maternal Wellbeing Afternoon where families can learn about free help and support as well as activities available in the area they can access for free.

Lead artist, Lisa Creagh said, “With a cost of living crisis close on the tails of a surge in mental health challenges arising directly from lockdowns,, many families are experiencing high levels of anxiety and distress, fuelled by increased isolation resulting from the pandemic. This wellbeing event is an opportunity to bring together people and services to seek to identify ways to improve wellbeing through collaborative working’.

This event will accompany the exhibition, An Ecology of Care at Open Eye Gallery. Artist Lisa Creagh will host the Maternal Wellbeing Afternoon in the Atrium of the gallery and warmly invites organisations working with families and children to come together to share what they do and the services they offer.

Why a Wellbeing Afternoon?

It is well documented that motherhood is closely associated with an increased risk of poverty. Around maternity is not uncommon to experience challenges around food, fuel and energy costs as incomes are reduced. Also women as statistically more likely to experience poverty than men, and there is also a strong link between female poverty and child poverty.

Catherine McClennan Improving Me NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Director said said, ‘”We place partnership and collaboration at the heart of everything we do. Women and their families are always key to all our work. Any opportunity to embrace community engagement is welcomed. This event provides an additional opportunity to bring various organisations together across the health and care sectors to improve communications and understanding to support more joint working to address the many challenges our families face ahead. We strive to make sure that everyone has the support they need and a fair chance for a healthy pregnancy”

The Maternal Wellbeing Afternoon is an opportunity for organisations who support mothers and families to suggest how they can help.

Cheshire and Merseyside mothers collaborated in the Holding Time project

About Holding Time

This event accompanies an exhibition of Cheshire and Merseyside mothers called Holding Time a co-created, multi-site art piece at Open Eye Gallery, part of a group show called Ecology of Care which brings together a series of socially engaged projects reflecting the intimate stories of care, relationships and resilience within our community.

There is an accompanying Holding Time project website which includes testimonies from mothers and several short Blog posts. The project also includes a Youtube channel featuring interviews with participating mothers and an accompanying social media campaign via Instagram and Facebook.

Breastfeeding is a polarised terrain and this project treads carefully the line between promoting breastfeeding whilst attempting to respect and understand the complexity of the entire subject. The project is research based with positive imagery at its core. The centerpiece is an installation of animated portraits of mothers accompanied by their voices describing their lived experience of breastfeeding.

The project is multi-channel, multi platform and operates city to city. By working with academics, health professionals and grassroots networks, it is intended to bring about meaningful change in UK breastfeeding policy. For the Holding Time Project shown in the gallery, Cheshire and Merseyside mothers during COVID to share their experiences throughout lockdowns in video interviews and blogs. Women were also invited to participate in writing workshops and a photo shoot. Across audio, video, animation and stills, the mothers discuss breastfeeding in all its complexity, highlighting challenges as well as answering many questions about why many women who want to breastfeed, stop before they are ready.

After Open Eye Gallery, the project is scheduled to tour Liverpool Foundation Trust Hospitals, November 2022 – Feb 2023.

OCTOBER 8th – 2-5pm

Events and workshops: 12-5pm

Maternal Wellbeing Fair: 2-4pm

Performances: 4pm

IMPROVING ME

Improving Me -Women’s health and Maternity (WHaM)programme -NHS Cheshire and Merseyside Health Care Partnership

Improving Me is a partnership of 27 NHS organisations across Cheshire and Merseyside aiming to improve women’s health and maternity experiences. The associated Women’s Health and Maternity (WHaM) programme is focused on developing a safe, high quality, clinically and financially sustainable whole system model of care for women’s services across Cheshire and Merseyside. WHaM has commissioned the Write On programme in response to feedback from service users and a national evidence base on the value of wiring interventions to boost wellbeing