AceShowbiz - New mum Eva Longoria has thanked the women in her life for helping her make it through pregnancy and the first months of parenthood.

The former Desperate Housewives star became a first-time momma in mid-June, when her son Santiago was born, and she insists she'd be lost without her friends and family members, who have offered up help and advice.

"I have an amazing, you know, support group, with my family and with all my friends," Longoria tells Entertainment Tonight, adding, "Kerry Washington's basically my doula.

"I just have this amazing community of women around me that have really helped me transition into motherhood and I think you need that."

And she admits Scandal star Washington has given her the best advice so far, explaining, "(She said), 'Follow your own instincts'... I have a baby nurse... I have a mother-in-law, and she (Washington) was like, 'You know, you have the best instinct'."

But being a working mum wasn't an easy transition for the actress, who is married to businessman Jose Baston: "It takes a lot of people...," she smiles. "But when people go, 'Your mother instincts kick in', that's true. I mean you become a natural.

"I've been a mom to so many (children) in my life already. My nieces, my nephews, girls through my foundation. I'm very well educated in this arena... I made sure I was and I took every class you could take. I read all the books, I watched all the videos, and I still continued to learn."

She reveals her pregnancy news could not have come at a better time, because she had just started playing a mum-to-be in new movie Dog Days.

"When I was filming this movie I was pregnant, I just found out I was pregnant," she explains. "And I was so tired. Playing a mom while I was actually making a baby was interesting and fun. Now, as I watch the movie, it was just so special. Nobody knew. My jeans wouldn't button and I was like, 'I hope the camera doesn't see this!'"

Dog Days hits U.S. theatres this week, August 08.