About Mia Scotland

Hello and welcome. You want to know a little about me. Maybe you want to know if I am the right person to help you? Maybe you want to get a feel for the kind of person that I might if you were to meet me? Maybe you just want reassurance that I am actually well qualified and that you would be in safe hands with me.

My name is Mia Scotland (nee Gregory). I am a Perinatal Chartered Clinical Psychologist. That means I trained in the NHS (many years ago) for over 8 years to qualify as a Clinical Psychologist, and then I went on to specialise in working with women and men as they become parents. The journey to becoming a parent is not an over-night transition. You are not suddenly a mother just because you have had a baby. You learn to become a parent, and most of the learning is an emotional journey during which you might doubt yourself, feel very stressed, feel overwhelmed, feel lost, feel very scared. That is okay and it is normal. Therapy can help you navigate this strange time and bring you to a place where you have your stability back, your fears in check and feel able to move on with confidence.  

I have extensive experience of helping people to overcome problems during pregnancy, childbirth and beyond. As well as providing personal therapy, I also train birth professionals in perinatal psychology both within and outside of the NHS. 

My time is spent at my clinic in Hygge House, where I help people in person and online, who want help navigating problems they are having during the parenting journey. Every month or so, I go out and provide training courses for birth professionals, for the NHS and for independent services. These training courses have been so well received, that I have now transformed them into online courses. I am author of “Why Postnatal Depression Matters” and “Birth Shock: how to recover from birth trauma”, and co-manager of Hygge House, the baby hub in Leicester. 

I am chartered with the British Psychological Society and regulated by the Health and Care Professions Council. I acquired my Clinical Psychology degree in 1996, and my first class honours degree in 1990. I have since trained as a hypnobirthing practitioner, a birth doula and a rewind therapist. My therapeutic approach is mainly cognitive behaviour therapy and compassion focused therapy, but as any good therapist does, I use an ecclectic mix of many wonderful insights and techniques that I have gained along the way.  

I left my Band 8 Clinical Psychologist post in 2005 to spend some time doing something a little less emotionally demanding while bringing up my children. I started teaching HypnoBirthing to expectant couples, going on to develop the Mindful Mamma hypnobirthing program with Sophie Fletcher. I trained with Michel Odent in 2007 and was a birth doula for 10 years, during which I learnt a lot about birthing, and the maternity system.

Before branching out into pregnancy and birth, and after qualifying as a Clinical Psychologist, I worked in the NHS, for over 15 years, focusing on treating a range of adult mental health problems. During my time in the NHS I worked with the eminent Professor Paul Gilbert in the art of cognitive behaviour therapy and Compassion focused therapy. I also worked in a psychosexual clinic, where I met women who had been traumatised by their births, and were having ongoing sexual and relationship problems as a result. 

In 2019 I opened a clinic called Hygge House in Thurmaston Leicester providing psychological services and also hire out rooms to therapists and professionals involved in perinatal services.

In 2020 I launched my very own online courses, for both parents and birth professionals- enabling people to access them no matter where in the country they are. 

Please don’t hesitate to pick up the phone or drop me a line if you have any queries – even if you’re not really sure yet, what it is that you need or want. The first step is sometimes the most difficult. 

Contact me on 07969 830929 or e-mail me mia@yourbirthright.co.uk.

Mia Scotland

Chartered Perinatal Clinical Psychologist

BA Hons. BSc. C. Psych HCPC