Why Pregnancy Wellbeing Belongs in Nature: The Story Behind Coracle Retreats
For more than two decades I have worked as a perinatal psychiatrist, supporting women navigating the emotional complexities of pregnancy and early motherhood. My clinical world has largely been the same: small white rooms, long corridors, strip lighting, and conversations held far away from the places where real life — and real wellbeing — actually happen.
Outside those walls, I am someone entirely different. I swim in the sea through every season. I hike, I ski, and I surf with joyful incompetence. My happiest days are spent in cold water, on mountain paths, or surrounded by countryside. These are the places where I feel grounded, restored, and fully myself.
Yet none of that energy, vitality, or connection to nature has ever been reflected in how I’ve felt able to offer mental health support within an NHS clinical model.
A shift sparked by the pandemic
After the Covid pandemic, something in me changed. I found myself asking a question that felt both simple and radical: What if perinatal mental health conversations didn’t have to happen in a windowless room?
What if expectant parents could learn, reflect, and prepare for parenthood in an environment that nourishes both mind and body? What if we honoured the physical experience of pregnancy with exceptional food and surroundings, while honouring the emotional experience with rich conversations, evidence‑based guidance, and space to breathe?
And what if, instead of overwhelming parents with instructions, we equipped them with knowledge and skills — then empowered them to make their own informed decisions about birth, early parenting, and the transition ahead?
Those questions became the seed of Coracle Retreats.
The birth of a new approach to parental wellbeing
Throughout my career, I have worked with mothers experiencing severe mental health difficulties during pregnancy and the postnatal period. But I am acutely aware of a much larger group of expectant parents who are not mentally unwell — they are just absolutely knackered, or beginning to feel a bit out of their depth.. They have big feelings, big questions, and big worries. They want to prepare, but they don’t know where to begin.
Coracle Retreats was created for them.
Coracle is designed for couples who like to plan, who value emotional wellbeing, and who recognise that becoming a parent is one of the most profound transitions of their lives. It is for those who want clarity, confidence, and connection — not just clinical information.
A retreat shaped by nature, knowledge, and community
At Fowlescombe Farm in South Devon, parents‑to‑be step into a landscape that invites them to slow down. Over four days, they rest, reconnect, and immerse themselves in a programme that blends:
• expert-led conversations on perinatal and infant mental health
• practical skills for managing the emotional intensity of pregnancy
• time in nature to restore the nervous system
• nourishing food that honours the pregnant body
• space to reflect as individuals and as a couple
• community with others at the same life stage
Pregnancy always brings big feelings — excitement, fear, joy, uncertainty. Learning how to meet those feelings with understanding and skill is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself, your partner, and your baby.
A new adventure begins
Creating Coracle Retreats feels like the start of a new chapter — one that brings together everything I know clinically with everything I love personally. It is a way of offering expectant parents something I have long believed they deserve: high‑quality information delivered in a setting that supports their whole wellbeing.
What a joy and a privilege to be alongside couples during their stay and to watch them leave rested, connected, and ready for the biggest adventure of all.
