I became a mother in a system that was very good at keeping me alive and not very good at keeping me informed.

The pregnancy checks. The prenatal classes. The glossy booklets. They covered what was happening to my baby in extraordinary detail. What was happening to me? A six-week check that took eleven minutes and a referral for pelvic floor physio.

Nobody told me about postpartum depletion. Nobody told me that the breastfeeding struggles I was having were more likely a nutrition problem than a personal failing. Nobody told me that my baby's skin was reacting to things I could identify and change. Nobody told me that the mealtime anxiety I'd feel two years later was near-universal, had a name, and had an evidence-based approach that nobody had mentioned.

I found all of this out later. Much later. By then I'd already spent months — in some cases years — blaming myself for things that had explanations.

Nobody Told Me is Nella Vosk's ongoing series about the information gaps that too many mothers encounter at the moments when they are most vulnerable. Each article starts from a real moment — a moment a mother wasn't told something she needed to know — and works back through what the research actually says.

This isn't a product series. It's an education series. The posts are organised by where you are in your journey, not by what we sell.

I write these because I spent 14 years as a Certified Postpartum Nutrition Professional watching the same pattern repeat. The mother who blamed herself for low milk supply that was a depletion problem. The parent who bought every cream on the shelf without hearing that the fabric their baby wore at night might be a trigger. The mum who held her breath through every mealtime thinking food refusal was her fault, not her toddler's developmental normal.

None of it was their fault. They just weren't told.

Start wherever you are.

Kelly x