Some fathers fry onions, scramble eggs, and chop vegetables around the table, while others rock newborns.
Children play with toys under the watchful eye of their mothers.
Amidst the bustling atmosphere at a culinary workshop in Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, couples open up.
Many women struggle with depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues.
It's a struggle that Nur Janajirah, founder of the organization MotherHope Indonesia that runs these workshops, knows all too well.
12 years ago, she decided to take her own life.
However, as she looked into the eyes of her then nine-month-old daughter, something changed.
"I touched her skin, smelled her scent... and thought, 'I have to get well for this child,'" says Nur.
She became pregnant just three months after having a stillborn baby at 28 weeks of pregnancy.
Because of this trauma, the risky pregnancy she had, and the pressure from society to be the perfect mother, she felt hopeless.
She couldn't sleep and could barely take care of her baby.
After that turning point, she sought help from a psychiatrist and was diagnosed with postpartum depression.
In developing countries, one in five women giving birth experiences some kind of mental health disorder, most commonly depression, according to data from the World Health Organization (WHO).
Hormonal changes during and after pregnancy can have a strong impact on psychological well-being, and additional factors such as a traumatic birth, poverty, or the loss of a loved one further worsen the situation.
Noor suffered in silence for nine months.
"Nobody understood, nobody gave me any information," he says.
"When I recovered... I wanted to give other women the support I didn't have."
Today, MotherHope Indonesia has 200 trained volunteers, runs support groups, organizes cooking workshops for fathers, and has a community of 58.000 members on Facebook.
Nadija came to the workshop to share her story.
After the birth of her first child, she struggled with depression and anxiety.
"I was sad for a long time.
"I couldn't sleep, it was unbearable, I didn't even feel like eating," she says.
"She would cry or get upset for no reason," says her husband Rakean.
"I didn't know how to help her."
But when he started coming to the workshops, he learned how to be supportive of her.
He says he cleaned, changed diapers, and took care of the baby.
"Now when my wife cries or seems exhausted, I know what to do," he says.
Nadija received therapy and psychological support, and wants other mothers to know that recovery is possible.
Their daughter is now five years old and their son is three, and Rakean provides her with comfort in difficult times.
“When she says 'I'm not a good mother'... I assure her that I am,” he adds.
The BBC spoke to women in three countries about initiatives in their communities that provide mental health support to mothers, mostly started by women who have had similar experiences.
Dr. Neerja Choudhary, a mental health specialist at the World Health Organization, says examples like these show how personal experience “strengthens trust and a sense of closeness” and makes those who have gone through similar experiences “effective support providers.”
She emphasizes that community-level interventions, which do not require large investments, can significantly improve the mental health of mothers in low- and middle-income countries.
However, he adds that proper training and supervision by experts are "essential."
More than 8.000 kilometers away, in Zimbabwe, Angie Mkoringo, due to her own struggle with mental health issues, decided to take action.
After the birth of her daughter 27 years ago, Angie was overcome by terrifying thoughts.
"I thought, 'What if I take this pillow and suffocate my child?'" she recalls.
"I would also stand in the kitchen with a knife in my hand, overcome with fear of what I might do."
She later learned that she suffered from perinatal obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), a form of anxiety that can occur during pregnancy or within a year after giving birth.
She was afraid to tell her family about it, so she sought help from a priest.
But her thoughts were interpreted as sin, which made her feel desperate and abandoned.
It wasn't until her daughter became a teenager that Angie was officially diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder and received therapy.
"I felt like I was reborn," she says.
Today, she raises awareness about this disorder through social media, radio shows, and workshops, and has turned her family home into a support center.
She founded the organization OCD Trust and continued to spread information and provide support to women going through similar experiences.
Psychologist Tafadzwa Mugazambi-Meki says that Zimbabwe has long lacked adequate mental health support for women around childbirth.
Today, she is a mother of three children, but she had a miscarriage and problems getting pregnant through in vitro fertilization.
She says that's when she became aware of how much mental health in her country is shrouded in myths and stigma, which is why she founded the organization SALT Africa.
The name is an abbreviation of Someone Always Listens To You, and the organization operates at the Mbuja Nehanda Maternity Hospital in the capital, Harare.
On the first floor of the hospital is a private room with a bed in the corner, the walls of which are painted with roses.
Here, families who have lost a baby can see and hold the bodies of their deceased children, which can help them come to terms with the loss.
The SALT organization renovated this room after providing support to a family that had their eighth stillborn baby.
On the ground floor, they opened a special ward for mothers who lost their babies during childbirth to separate them from those celebrating birth and holding their newborns in their arms.
SALT also provides support to mothers of premature babies, who, says Mugazambi-Meki, are often subjected to “ridicule and accusations of debauchery.”
Experts emphasize that it is extremely important to inform women about mental health early in pregnancy, which is precisely the goal of another initiative in Gambia.
A group of women, dressed in bright, colorful clothing, sway and clap to the rhythm of an improvised drum.
One singer recites a verse, and the others repeat it in unison.
Some pregnant women get up and start dancing.
Although the singing is cheerful, the rhymes contain serious messages about the physical and mental health of expectant mothers - from taking iron to avoiding stress.
The goal of the CHIME (Community Health Intervention through Music Engagement) project is to use these musical gatherings to reduce anxiety, improve mood, and encourage social bonding among women.
The performers are so-called Kanyelen, women known for their music and humor, who often perform at events such as weddings, and have mostly had problems conceiving, or lost their babies.
Jara Marega, head of The Gambia's National Mental Health Program, explains that they are considered "wounded healers," women who have recovered from difficult experiences and are now helping others.
Their work is “in keeping with the strong cultural and oral tradition of our country,” she says.
"Music naturally breaks down barriers."
Research conducted by scientists from the United Kingdom and South Africa showed that pregnant women who attended these gatherings had significantly fewer symptoms of depression.
Similar approaches are currently being tested in South Africa and Lesotho, with support from the UK's National Institute for Health Research.
Here too, stigma and misunderstanding are a problem, as in Indonesia and Zimbabwe.
However, women like Angie and Noor have been greatly helped by sharing their experiences.
“The more I talked about my experience, the faster and better I recovered,” says Angie.
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