New Report Details Perinatal Mental Health Experiences

- The "This Is Our Truth" report by the Bristol-based charity Mothers for Mothers found that 79% of mothers said their mental wellbeing was worse during or after pregnancy. It also revealed that nearly half of the 791 respondents did not feel they received adequate support to bond with their baby. - Perinatal mental health problems affect up to one in four new and expectant mothers in the UK. Suicide is a leading cause of death for mothers between six weeks and one year after giving birth. - Untreated perinatal mental illness in the UK has an estimated societal cost of £8.1 billion for each annual cohort of births, with nearly three-quarters of that cost related to negative impacts on the child. - The NHS Long Term Plan aims to increase access to specialist perinatal mental health services for at least 66,000 women by 2023/24 and extend the period of care to 24 months after birth. As of February 2024, over 57,000 new and expectant mothers had received specialist support, an increase of a third from 2022. - A key recommendation from the "This Is Our Truth" report is the implementation of mandatory trauma-informed training for all professionals involved in perinatal care. - The Maternal Mental Health Alliance (MMHA), a coalition of over 120 UK organizations, advocates for improved perinatal mental health care. Mothers for Mothers is a member of this alliance. - A recent MBRRACE-UK report (2021-23) found that almost all women who died from psychiatric causes faced significant disadvantages, such as poverty or domestic abuse, and that improvements in care could have changed the outcome for 64% of those who died by suicide. - In addition to community-based care, the NHS is expanding mother and baby unit bed capacity to provide specialist inpatient care for mothers with severe mental illness without separating them from their babies.