Beyond birth
After struggling postpartum, Marlou is advocating for clearer maternal pathways
Beyond birth
After struggling postpartum,
Marlou is advocating for clearer maternal pathways
When Marlou de Booij became a mother, she discovered pregnancy came with a clear roadmap, but postpartum recovery did not. “I had no expectations for my own healthcare after birth. I didn’t plan for it. I had no idea I needed to,” Marlou says.
“Postpartum health is this big unknown, a black hole of information. It can seem like the impact of pregnancy on mothers ends with birth, but that’s not true.”
Originally from the Netherlands, Marlou completed her nursing degree in Eindhoven before meeting her now-husband while backpacking and moving to Adelaide to build a life together.
She later completed a Graduate Certificate in Emergency Nursing at Flinders University, developing a strong clinical foundation that would shape how she understood her own experiences of pregnancy and motherhood.
After the birth of her first child, Marlou expected her health would simply return to normal. She did not recognise the warning signs that emerged leading into her second pregnancy — or anticipate the health challenges that would follow.
“My second pregnancy was like layers of Swiss cheese that were perfectly aligned and I fell through every single hole that was possible,” she says.
“My body was stuck in this fight or flight mode, a response to acute stress, where I experienced all these different conditions, from insomnia, to irritable bowel syndrome, and issues with my vision.
“The healthcare I received was disjointed, going from one individual specialist to another, seeking advice on all these different symptoms. There was no holistic approach to my postpartum health and it left me feeling very lost.”
"Postpartum health is this big unknown,
a black hole of information."
Turning lived experience into a drive for change
Marlou began to find answers when a friend recommended Dr Oscar Serrallach, an integrative general practitioner who specialised in postnatal depletion.
Between pregnancies, she participated in two of Dr Serrallach’s postnatal programs and explored Chinese medicine to support her recovery. She also found the space to speak openly about her own health and experiences.
“I engaged much more in the mother circles and started to understand the value of both sharing and validation — two things really missing for mothers in postpartum and beyond,” she says.
“You have your mother’s group, but you talk about babies. You don’t talk about what mothers are experiencing or validating the way they’re feeling, the whole matrescence experience.”
Similar to adolescence, matrescence describes the physical, psychological and emotional transition a woman undergoes as she becomes a mother.
“The fact that matrescence still is not in a dictionary is an example of how we are not appreciating the physical and emotional changes a woman goes through after each birth.”
For Marlou, these experiences exposed a gap between Australia’s approach to maternal healthcare and the support new mothers need.
As a nurse, she could see opportunities to improve the system, but she wanted to understand how that recognition could be turned into meaningful action.
“I believe in the importance of innovation and working in different ways, and I think the Australian health system is quite stuck in red tape,” she says.
Already studying Bond University’s Master of Healthcare Innovations, Marlou began directing her coursework towards maternal health and exploring how better models of care could be developed.
Making maternal health the focus
Bond University’s Master of Healthcare Innovations equips health professionals to challenge established practices and develop new models, systems and policies that improve the delivery of care.
Through multidisciplinary coursework spanning evidence-based practice, healthcare systems, policy, leadership and innovation, students can align their assessments with the healthcare challenges they are most driven to address.
Marlou applied a maternal health and wellbeing lens to each of her subjects, using coursework to explore how care for women who have given birth could be improved in Australia.
“I wanted to focus my research on my own experience because it connected with me a lot more. I am very passionate about maternal health and so the subjects became much more interesting as I could apply them to my topic,” she says.
“It’s me-search, right?”
This personal focus allowed her to examine maternal health from several angles, beginning with the evidence underpinning clinical practice.
“One was evidence-based practice, and I looked at iron infusions in pregnancy and how much the evidence supports that it’s actually beneficial for the baby, because of course the mother is not really looked at,” she says.
In Leading Innovation in Healthcare, Marlou turned her attention to the broader social and systemic changes needed to provide mothers with stronger community support.
“How can we change society? What would it look like to do a grassroots-up movement for supporting mothers better in the community?”
Her research paper enabled her to take that investigation further, examining approaches to maternal morbidity and long-term postpartum health and wellbeing around the world.
A roadmap for better care
Now a mother to children aged eight, six and three, Marlou works as a project manager and network adviser for South Australia’s statewide clinical networks within the Commission on Excellence and Innovation in Health.
Marlou continues to see many opportunities to help prevent women from navigating what she calls ‘no-mum’s-land’ after birth, including greater access to education and support from medical practitioners and allied health professionals.
“Educating mothers about that ‘black hole’ in postpartum is important; women don’t have the capacity to take that on during pregnancy,” Marlou explains.
“There needs to be a postpartum maternal checkpoint at three to six months after birth, where you can work with your GP to create a structured and validated approach to your own health and wellbeing.
“A standardised and fully funded maternal follow-up for physiotherapy throughout the first postpartum year will also reduce things like chronic lower back pain and complications from incontinence.”
Central to the shift is greater recognition of matrescence both within the healthcare system and in the wider community.
“Healthcare providers need to do better at recognising matrescence and understanding the maternal brain, and the changes in its structure after pregnancy and birth,” Marlou says.
“There needs to be more resourcing for postpartum research, and for the development of tools to validate and assess mothers and their support systems.”
A roadmap for better care
Now a mother to children aged eight, six and three, Marlou works as a project manager and network adviser for South Australia’s statewide clinical networks within the Commission on Excellence and Innovation in Health.
Marlou continues to see many opportunities to help prevent women from navigating what she calls ‘no-mum’s-land’ after birth, including greater access to education and support from medical practitioners and allied health professionals.
“Educating mothers about that ‘black hole’ in postpartum is important; women don’t have the capacity to take that on during pregnancy,” Marlou explains.
“There needs to be a postpartum maternal checkpoint at three to six months after birth, where you can work with your GP to create a structured and validated approach to your own health and wellbeing.
“A standardised and fully funded maternal follow-up for physiotherapy throughout the first postpartum year will also reduce things like chronic lower back pain and complications from incontinence.”
Central to the shift is greater recognition of matrescence both within the healthcare system and in the wider community.
“Healthcare providers need to do better at recognising matrescence and understanding the maternal brain, and the changes in its structure after pregnancy and birth,” Marlou says.
“There needs to be more resourcing for postpartum research, and for the development of tools to validate and assess mothers and their support systems.”
A degree designed to make a difference
Marlou says Bond’s Master of Healthcare Innovations is a great first step for healthcare professionals passionate about driving change.
Delivered online across Bond’s accelerated trimester schedule, the program enabled her to balance study with work and family commitments while applying each subject directly to her professional interests.
“Every single subject gave me something that was really relevant for my work, and I applied everything I learned straight away,” she says.
“In the world that we live in, we need to embrace a culture of innovation. I think Bond’s Master of Healthcare supports the challenge — and need — for our next generation workforce to think differently.”
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