8 2GN The Sunday Times April 24, 2022NEWS
Monday, she was singing The
Lark in the Clear Air at St
Aidan’s nature reserve near
Leeds.
Dandy, 32, said: “SongPath
came out of a dark period in
my life. I didn’t sing for a
year, and felt that I’d lost my
sense of self and reason for
being in the world.”
She left London and
returned to her native
Cumbria, where JoannaShe was a soloist at last year’s
First Night of the Proms but
Jess Dandy can also be found
singing in the countryside.
After struggling with acute
anxiety and depression, she
has set up an initiative,
SongPath, to help others to
improve their mental health
by going for walks and
listening to music. LastHannah Al-Othman Harries, a fellow opera singer, supported her by going on
walks together.
Harries said: “We thought,
‘Music and nature, how can
we bring them together to aid
mental health?”
SongPath sells tickets for
the events it organises, but
also works with the mental
health charity Mind, whose
clients are given free tickets
to the walks.An NHS hospital will offer free legal
advice to pregnant women to stop them
burdening midwives with worries about
unreasonable bosses and other prob-
lems.
The project was inspired by midwives
who say they are not qualified to deal
with the “tsunami” of work and money-
related concerns raised by expectant
mothers during routine appointments.
The trial, which is due to begin at the
Wirral Women and Children’s Hospital in
the coming months, is the first of its kind
and will initially run for 12 months. It
could be introduced around the country
if it proves successful.
Jo Ward, from the NHS Cheshire and
Merseyside Women’s Health and Mater-
nity programme, which is funding the
trial, said they believed it would save the
health service money in the long-term.
Research shows that stress and anxiety in
pregnant women increase the chance of
premature birth and subsequent compli-
cations.
All the mothers will have “direct and
instant” access to an employment law-
yer, who can advise them on any-
thing from statutory maternity pay
to unsafe working conditions.
Ward said: “Our midwives were
telling us that the mum and mums-
to-be were incredibly stressed
when they were coming in for clin-
ical observations and foetal exami-
nations. And what that means is
that, although the stress and anx-
iety initially is in a sense on
the surface, it causes
further problems.Lauren Pretorius,
pictured with
Laci, nine months,
and Paige, four,
was frustrated by
her employer’s
slow responseOutdoor
singing to
help lift
the spirits
Midwives to push
stressed mums to
seek legal advice
“The more stressed you are, the more
cortisol you produce. So when you com-
bine that with the situation of pregnancy,
we know that environment, if it’s toxic for
mum, it’ll be toxic for baby as well.”
Staff also hope that by helping women
to access support at an earlier stage,
fewer will end up needing to use perina-
tal and postnatal mental health services.
“During the pandemic, we already had a
tsunami of perinatal mental health prob-
lems, in relation to women in pregnancy
and giving birth during lockdowns,”
Ward said.
Ros Bragg, director of Maternity
Action, the specialist charity that has
been commissioned to run the advice
line, said: “We know that thousands of
pregnant women face difficulties with
maternity pay and benefits, and unfair
treatment at work, and don’t know
where to turn to for help.”
Maternity Action already has a
national helpline, but demand is high.
For each call their advisers answer, there
are eight more that they cannot get to.Jo Chimes, a solicitor and the charity’s
advice services manager, said: “We often
have people call us up in tears, because
they are just finding it really difficult to
cope or manage with everything else
that’s going on, plus trying to resolve
their legal problems as well.”
Lauren Pretorius, 32, a primary school
teacher from Buckinghamshire, said she
was frustrated by her employer’s slow
response to her request to work flexibly
on her return to work after the birth of
her daughter Laci, now nine months.
“My first week of maternity leave was
me sitting on a birthing ball, meeting with
HR and my work over Zoom to discuss my
flexible working request,” she said.
Her request was turned down, and she
was offered an unspecified job at a
secondary school — run by the same fed-
eration — even though she teaches year 1.
“I cannot tell you what it’s been like,” she
said. “I’ve had to go to my GP. It’s been
horrible. I feel like it’s robbed me of the
time with my daughter.”
Another mother, Lucy, who works for
an agrochemical company, asked to be
moved from her role in a laboratory
when she found out she was pregnant, as
some of the chemicals could be harmful
to her unborn child. She had a difficult
pregnancy “but they told me I still had to
come to work on 12-hour shifts,” she said.
After receiving legal advice, she was
allowed to work from home.
Lauren Fabianski, from the campaign
group Pregnant Then Screwed, said: “We
believe these issues are getting worse,
with calls to our free HR and legal advice
lines tripling between 2020 and 2021.”
Chimes’s team said that the thinking
was long term — “resolving women’s legal
issues, so that then they don’t lose their
job and lose their home, they get into
debt, and then that affects their health. If
we can get in with good, specialist, early
advice, and try to resolve their employ-
ment and their benefits problems, then
that helps to prevent a further spiral that
potentially can happen,” she said.
@HannahAlOthmanAn NHS hospital will give
pregnant women tips to
help deal with a ‘tsunami’
of work worries — and to
stop them burdening staffHannah Al-OthmanSONGPATHJess Dandy pauses to sing on a country walk as part of the SongPath initiative to help people with mental health issueswhich is funding the
ieved it would save the
oney in the long-term.
hat stress and anxiety in
increase the chance of
nd subsequent compli-
will have “direct and
an employment law-
vise them on any-
ory maternity pay
conditions.
r midwives were
mum and mums-
redibly stressed
oming in for clin-
and foetal exami-
at that means is
stress and anx-
a sense on
ausesp
Laci, nine months,
and Paige, four,
was frustrated by
herhh employer’s
slow response