There are better mental health care during pregnancy – I saw it. Why don’t all women get it? | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

TWhere sober facts for you: 1) Suicide is the most common cause of the death of mothers in the period of six weeks to one year after birth and 2) There are only 22 mother and baby units in the whole of Great Britain One in Northern Ireland.

Perinatal mental illnesses – a leading complication of pregnancy – is back in the news. Services crumble and overloaded, and A postcode means that women often have difficulty accessing treatment with devastating consequences. The new Labor MP Laura Kyrke-Smith was move About the death of her friend Sophie, who ended her life 10 weeks after the birth of her third child. Sophie had suffered from fear, especially in the feeding of her baby, and they had spent a night in A&E, but it is unclear whether signs that they were at risk were taken up by experts. Her friend asked herself If in the midst of all the concern for the baby her mother asked whether it was good for her and what a difference that could not have been done not only Sophie, but the three young daughters she left behind.

During pregnancy you will be monitored for all possible physical complications. In fact, the average woman has 16 contacts with members of the health professions during pregnancy. They measure them and scan them and take on their blood and urine samples and monitor preeclampsia and pregnancy diabetes. You should also ask you about your mood, but that doesn’t always happen or not often enough. After you have your baby, your health visitor and your family doctor should check the baby’s health and ask about the well -being of the mother, but it can sometimes feel like a tick box exercise and the attention that is given to this and the available help can to be placed very much from place.

The motherly mental Health Alliance and the Royal College of Midwives say that the care and the time it takes to access life -saving support gives strong differences. You and Kyrke-Smith want to prevent women from slipping through the cracks by supporting mental health that is completely embedded in routine maternity. In recent years there have been major improvements in recent years – including the creation of named psychological health posts – but there has been a desperate need for more funds and employees.

I am a mother with some first -hand experience with the perinatal mental health system. I went through the decaying temporary buildings. I sat on ice on the phone. And I have felt the shame that they sometimes cause women to ask for help while everyone says everyone says that they are a completely joyful phase of their lives. It took three transfers – two of a hospital advisor and one of a particularly stubborn health visitor – to bring me special help.

Understandably, there is a high threshold for the transfer (although we are honest, it is probably too high). The services are stretched so that it can be difficult to believe that they earn care. “So many women have to go worse than me,” they think, even if you said that you should definitely get help. In a time of acute needs and decades of underfunding, the concept of mental health care for maternal mental health seems to be a luxury, although in my fall, support during pregnancy.

I consider myself one of the lucky ones. I received excellent care, especially from the nurse of mental health, which made home visits and was in contact by phone. But unfortunately it is help that I would not necessarily have included in another district or another region. So many mothers I got to know have more soldier or said, many years after the fact: “I think I had postnatal depression” or “The thoughts I had were not normal”. Women and their relatives to recognize when they need this additional support – and that they deserve it should be a crucial part of the pregnancy trip. If you ask yourself how you are to listen to you, to notice alarm signals and prevent relevant services, is now standard in some trusts, but should be everywhere.

There are places where charity organizations try to close the gaps, but many women need a higher level of care than free advice provided by volunteers. A friend who moved from London to Somerset is proof of this. In her first twin pregnancy in Islington, she received brilliant care, but during her second pregnancy she had to choose an expensive private therapy. This was despite the writing down of a document that summarized its history of postnatal depression (PND) and its post -traumatic stress disorder (PTBS) and asked the relatives of the health professions to read it.

What does that tell us? It indicates depressingly that even the volume of self -harm may have difficulty supporting access. So what hope are there for those who have the feeling that they don’t deserve who is vulnerable or the signs have not discovered that they need help?

In the history of Sophie’s case, there are many terrible details from the news that she sent in these desperate first weeks to the rich life she has left behind. What my own heart sought read about her difficulties in feeding. Kyrke-Smith said that you do not know that “whether the conversations you had about the baby’s feeding were carried out in a way that the mental health that my friend may have had was considerate”. Since I wrote about my own challenges with breastfeeding, several specialists in the field of mental health told me privately that they believe that the way in which the NHS Unicefs delivers baby -friendly breastfeeding policy from Unicef ​​cannot be compatible with that Protection of the mental health of women. A 2022 study also in nature Considered concerns These exclusive guidelines for breastfeeding promotion can tighten the negative results of mental health of mothers. A really baby -friendly policy appreciates the mental health of the mother of this baby.

I am so glad that the conversation about the mental health takes place in a mother’s side and measures such as the introduction of midwives of the mental health of specialists are a step in the right direction, but more funds, more employees, more education, more surveillance, more data and More data and more range are urgently needed. One of five women suffers from a mental illness in the perinatal time. When will mothers stop screaming?

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