When you have a baby for the first time, your whole world changes. Sometimes it is difficult to find your feet again at once and many questions and problems arise. Everything is new! The Mothers Inform Mothers (MIM) program has been set up to support and encourage new mothers to follow their own feelings.
What is MIM?
Mothers Inform Mothers is part of Meavita and is a supplement to the child health clinic. Community nurses noticed that many questions were asked by mothers, which could be discussed just as well or sometimes even better with experienced mothers. As a result, the Mothers Inform Mothers program was set up.
Who is MIM for?
Mothers Inform Mothers is mainly intended for mothers who have had a child for the first time. Everything is suddenly new and your whole world is suddenly turned upside down. Many questions arise and even the simplest tasks suddenly seem impossible. Experienced mothers know from their own experience what questions, problems and feelings mothers may have. With this experience, experienced mothers try to help and support new mothers.
What does MIM do?
When you have had a child for the first time, MIM puts you in touch with a mother who already has one or more children. This mother works as a volunteer at Mothers Inform Mothers and comes to visit you once every month. Such an experienced mother is therefore called a visiting mother. They call the mother of her first child a first-child mother.
During such a visit all kinds of things can be discussed and it usually lasts 1 to 1.5 hours. The main function of a visiting mother is to be a listening ear. If something is bothering you, you just want to say something or you really don’t know what to do with a certain situation, you can always tell your visiting mother! The visiting mother has a duty of confidentiality, which means that she will not pass on the material discussed to third parties. Only in exceptional cases, where the family needs professional help, will the visiting mother discuss the situation with her MIM coordinator. However, this is only to help the mother, child or family further.
Most conversations are about the mother herself, motherhood, the development of the child and the bond between child and mom/dad. If the first-child mother wishes, the visiting mother can give her tips or information. She does not give advice, but encourages the first-child mother to deal with her child in her own way. She lets us know that a mother knows her child best and that you can trust your own maternal instincts. She reassures the mother that it is extremely normal to be uncertain during this period and to have many questions. By recognizing that motherhood is not always easy, she tries to support the mother as much as possible, to let her trust herself and to deal with the child and motherhood independently in her own way.
These visits usually end when the child is 1.5 years old. The period of uncertainty is often over and the mother can handle the child and motherhood with confidence. Of course, there are always exceptions and it may happen that the visiting mother visits the first-child mother for longer or that mothers are visited who already have more than one child.