<<<Back to Table of Contents
Women are phenomenal in their capacity for taking care of others. Most of us possess an innate ability to identify and attend to the needs of our children, partners, friends and loved ones. But all too often, we leave ourselves off of the list of people who need and deserve some TLC. Darline Turner-Lee reminds us of the importance of putting ourselves high on that list, especially during pregnancy and post-partum recovery. With 17 years experience as a physician’s assistant and fitness instructor, Turner-Lee is well versed in the benefits of taking care of oneself. As a mother who experienced two high-risk pregnancies and two Caesarean births, she also understands that self-care often requires a little help from others. At the age of 37, after a history of diffi-culty with fibroids and a previous miscarriage, Turner-Lee was pregnant and had begun spotting. With concern for her age and medical history, her doctor warned that she could be prescribed bed rest. Turner-Lee’s husband traveled frequently in his job and family members were in other states. She had only lived in Texas for one year and had not yet established a support system. “I was wondering, how are we going to do this?” she recalls. As it turned out, she was not confined to bed, but the question of how she would manage such a scenario lingered in her mind. Turner-Lee also learned that three of her friends were on bed rest. “My friends were concerned about circulation, so I burned an instructional DVD of exercises they could do in bed.” Her friends were grateful, but Turner-Lee knew that exercise was only one aspect of the care that mothers on bed rest require.
When Turner-Lee was pregnant with her second child at the age of 40, her doctor told her again that bed rest was a consideration. This time, her concern about how she would handle it was even greater. “I now had a toddler to take care of and I still didn’t know many people; there were some I went to church with, but no real network of friends.” Turner-Lee called a home health agency that provided “adult day care,” but when she told them that she needed help because she was pregnant, they said, “We don’t do that.” Turner-Lee saw a real need that was not being met. “I kept thinking about services that moms on bed rest could use, like grocery shopping or transporting an older child to and from school,” she says. “I remember kicking the laundry basket down the hallway with my three-year-old pulling the other end because I couldn’t lift it; I could have really used some help.” Turner-Lee decided to launch Bedrest Comfort & Care, a business dedicated to providing an array of services for mamas on bed rest. In a short time, however, Turner-Lee realized that mothers who were not on bed rest still had similar needs. “I participated in a baby expo in May and pregnant women came to my booth to check out the service, but when they saw the name Bedrest Comfort & Care, they said, ‘Oh, I’m not on bed rest,’” says Turner-Lee, “So, I decided to change the name to Mamas on Bedrest & Beyond to include all pregnant and post-partum women.”
Whether on bed rest or not, pregnant women (like many women) tend to put their needs at the bottom of their list of priorities. They believe they have no time for exercise, or that they should not spend money on services that would help them. “It’s almost like saying, ‘What I need is not important’,” says Turner-Lee. “The truth is, we can’t give from an empty cup.” She recalls seeing an acquaintance while picking her child up from school one day. The woman had undergone a Caesarean birth just one week earlier. “I asked her what she was doing out of bed and told her I would have been happy to pick her child up and take him home for her. She said that she did not want her son’s routine to be interrupted,” says Turner-Lee. “I understand that her son might have been a little upset by a change in routine, but what she was doing was risky; her abdominal muscles had been traumatized by the surgery, so they would not have been able to respond quickly if she suddenly needed to hit the brakes while driving. She was at risk of being involved in a car accident or splitting her wound, which would have caused a setback in her recovery.” Turner-Lee adds, “It seems that women have a mentality of ‘taking it for the team.’ No, you don’t ‘take it for the team;’ we’ve got to stop taking it for the team.”
Turner-Lee feels strongly about the importance of making moms’ needs a priority. “If your child was sick, would you not feed them or change their bedding? Yet we think it’s somehow a ‘luxury’ to have the same care when we need it.” She continues, “I want to help women understand that childbearing is more than just nine months. Our bodies go through a fundamental change and moms may not realize the damage done if they don’t take time for themselves.” In addition to services, Turner-Lee offers education for women on the importance of taking care of mama. Her website offers articles, podcasts, v-casts and downloads for the purpose of sharing much-needed information with moms. “It’s about raising awareness so that women really understand that the things we are doing for ourselves now will affect how we feel later,” says Turner-Lee. “It may need to be that I’m number one so that I can take care of everybody else.”
Services Offered From Mamas On Bedrest & Beyond
• Massage
• Modified Exercises
• Personal Grooming and Linen Change
• Light Housekeeping
• Laundry Service
• Errands and Grocery Shopping
• High Risk Pregnancy Support
MORE INFO
www.mamasonbedrest.com