| The Womb Issue
When Clara was pregnant with her first daughter in 2019, life was a whirl of doctors’ appointments, scans, and checkups, all scheduled by the French health system. Then she gave birth, and it just… stopped. She went home with a brand new human to take care of and no guidance.
I felt like there was a huge gap when it came to postnatal care,” she said. The isolation she felt, compounded by the COVID-19 restrictions that began around the same time, is something that many new parents experience after they have a child. “It made me realize that something had to be done.
Medina King, founder of MK Kids Interiors, in front of her store.
Clara decided to fight this feeling by creating Le Dixième Mois, a company organizing postpartum retreats in the Savoie region of France. “I wanted to create a little bubble for new mothers, where they would have a little holiday, and feel less isolated,” she says.
The name “Le Dixième Mois,” meaning the Tenth Month, aims to reframe the postpartum period as a continuation of the pregnancy journey, rather than an afterthought. Clara explains that this is a period of big changes in your lifestyle and your body, and as such, it deserves its own rituals.
Her first retreat took place in July 2022 and laid the foundation for those that followed. Each retreat lasts three days and two nights and is hosted in a hotel, where mothers get a taste of luxury and “cocooning.” Participants can attend with babies up to twelve months old and are welcome to bring partners, grandparents, or other companions to share meals and downtime. The seven workshops, however, are reserved for mothers and babies. “Even though we’d love to include dads more, it’s easier for moms to open up without other people’s partners present,” Clara explains.
Workshops are a combination of practical skills, wellness exercises, and sharing circles. “We try to cover five main needs: caring for the baby, supporting the mother, talking with others, reconnecting with the body, and learning practical skills,” Clara notes.
Practical workshops include things like how to wrap your baby in a sling or do baby sign language. Wellness workshops include postnatal massages for mothers and reflexology sessions for babies. Gentle movement sessions aim to reconnect mothers with their bodies through yoga, pilates, or dance.
Medina King, founder of MK Kids Interiors, in front of the MK Kids Interiors storefront.
The most impactful sessions, however, are the sharing circles. “It’s really just exchanges between moms, very simple, with no judgment,” Clara says. “You can vent your emotions, talk about good things and bad things. Everyone listens and supports each other.” Just being able to sit down and hash out experiences with people who understand goes a long way toward fighting feelings of loneliness.
After giving birth to her second daughter, Clara was able to join a retreat not as an organizer, but as a mother. “I found it so beneficial to talk to mothers about the feelings of guilt you sometimes have, and all the mental load you have to take on as a mother,” she said.
Some of these talks can be extremely sad and moving, but they are also interspersed with moments of silliness—like chatting about mishaps of breastfeeding in public and people’s reactions to it.
The aim is to feel that you are not alone in your experience,” she says. “Because having a baby comes with a lot of joy and happy things, but it can also be a real source of isolation.
As Le Dixième Mois enters its fourth year, Clara has big plans. She wants to expand across France, so people don’t have to travel so far to access a retreat. She is also in discussion with several big companies about organizing workshops for employees post-parental leave. Because, as Clara says, “even a few days of connection and care can make a lasting difference.”
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©2018 -2025 – TrooRa is a registered trademark of Rare Luxury Living LLC TrooRa Magazine, A Fortunest Group and is registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
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