The Good and the Bad of online Mammy Groups?

I’d like some of you to consider sharing this with your online or real-life mammy group. This is what real life mammies are experiencing in your groups. Mammy and baby groups, both real-life and online, have potential to influence public health, from breast feeding to vaccinations.

Online and real-life mammy and baby groups have the potential to be great; I’m in more than a few online! I found real life groups, for the most part, fantastic, especially with my first. The sharing of information, days out, baby sales, life hacks, and reassurances are benefit mammy and children. They can also cause real-life problems. And is there a health issue here? You betcha.

These groups have massive potential to influence our mental health, community vaccine uptake rates, unsafe alternative practices, and mammies seeking early and appropriate medical or developmental assessment of their children.

You need some examples?

– When either mammies or admin misunderstand “closed group”. While that feature restricts unapproved people from gate-crashing conversations or marketing in your group, there should not be an expectation of privacy on social media. Firstly, because some of these groups have upwards of 9K members. “Screenshots” are only one way by which anything and everything in that group can be shared instantly – to anywhere.
– When the group allows pseudoscience, vaccine misinformation, or any practice unsafe for children to be promoted.
-When the group does not encourage a new mammy to have the confidence to get urgent professional medical, midwife, or mental health treatment for herself or her sick or suffering child.
-Mammy-shaming: Really. Just stop it. It’s not good for our mental health.
– While children may have similar health or developmental challenges, it’s helpful to talk to others. Support another mammy going through it, BUT don’t assume her journey will be – or should be – the same as yours.

Demand better in your mammy groups. Let’s discourage mammy-shaming and pseudoscience sharing, encourage that mammy to call the out-of-hours GP/midwives or ask for whatever appropriate help she needs, call out bad advice and untrustworthy resources, and consider PM’ing or anonymous posts if the subject is sensitive to protect each other.