Perinatal counselling — from pregnancy through the first year and beyond.

Perinatal means around birth. In practice, that covers trying to conceive, pregnancy, postnatal, and the long after. Officially the perinatal period gets counted as the first year. Unofficially — for most women I sit with — it stretches well past that. Two years, sometimes three. The body remembers for a long time.

Most women don't use the word "perinatal" to describe their own experience. You say "I'm pregnant," or "I just had a baby," or "I have a six-month-old and I'm losing it." Those are all the same window. This page is for any of it.

Anxiety during pregnancy. Postnatal depression — including the version that doesn't look depressed and just looks like nothing at all. Birth trauma, even when the birth went "fine" by the medical notes. Grief and loss — miscarriage, stillbirth, infant loss, the ones that came before this baby and the ones that didn't make it here yet. The slow grief inside good news. Rage. Hypervigilance. Feeling like a stranger to yourself. Not recognising your relationship anymore. Not recognising your body, your appetite, your sleep, your sense of time.

We don't need to pick a category before we start. You bring whatever is heaviest this week.

All sessions are held over Google Meet. You don't have to leave the house, find childcare, drive somewhere, or pretend to be fine in a waiting room. Pyjamas are fine. Crying is fine. Breastfeeding through it is fine. If your baby is in your arms or on the floor in front of you, that's the room we're working in.

There's no script. No worksheets. No "five steps to overcome postnatal anxiety." I sit with you in what's actually happening, and I help you name it, and we go from there. Some weeks the work is huge. Most weeks it's small. Both are the work.

I've worked alongside families through Red Nose — Australia's leading organisation for stillbirth, miscarriage, and infant loss support — both online and in person. That work taught me how to hold the kind of grief that doesn't have a card aisle in the supermarket.

I'm also originally from Salento, in southern Italy, and I notice things that maybe a counsellor who hasn't lived between two cultures wouldn't notice. Which family shapes you're holding. Which losses are allowed to be named in your community and which aren't. Which language you'd grieve in if you could.

For the longer version of how I came to this work — including the personal parts — there's more on the about page.

The free services in Australia are genuinely excellent. PANDA runs a National Helpline (1300 726 306) for crisis moments and is staffed by counsellors who specialise in perinatal mental health. The Gidget Foundation offers programs and groups. Both are wonderful. Use them.

What I offer is something different — ongoing, private, one-on-one counselling where you don't have to start from scratch each time. We build a relationship. You don't have to re-explain yourself every session. The work compounds.

On perinatal.