Women’s lives at risk from lack of maternal mental health support – BBC Newsnight

Women’s lives at risk from lack of maternal mental health support – BBC Newsnight



Pregnancy and the early months of motherhood can be a time of great vulnerability for women. Almost one in five women experience a mental health condition during pregnancy or the first year of their child’s life.

In 2016 the UK government pledged a revolution in mental health services, including almost £300 million to provide specialist care for expectant or new mothers.

But new data, shared exclusively with Newsnight shows that despite progress, services across the UK are still struggling to meet their targets.

And while the numbers of women who take their own lives when they are pregnant or in the first year after giving birth are small – the risk of the worst outcome appears to be rising.

Newsnight’s Science Correspondent Kate Lamble reports.

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she loves doing a selfie and she goes Elena's daughter is 18 months old this is actually at her Nursery when we're putting today Elena says they've got a brilliant relationship but a fortnight after the birth things were difficult looking back I can see um signs so one of the biggest ones now is that I just stopped taking any photos or videos so I have a bit of a gap there um and then I started my mood started to change I started to feel quite low I was sleeping a lot and it in hindsight it wasn't just to catch up on sleep it was to avoid the feelings I was feeling um I didn't want to be in the same room as my daughter up to one in five women experience a mental health condition during pregnancy or the following year but that can take many forms the biggest and most distressing symptom for me was intrusive thoughts what were those intrusive thoughts saying what was that experience like they were quite violent thoughts of purposefully harming my baby um and I wasn't like imagining myself doing the thing those things um which was Beyond scary I would say maybe a less scary one that I would share would be around um pushing the push my push chair and walking down a hill and having um a thought about letting go of the push chair and I I wasn't convinced that I wasn't going to do it Eleanor had suffered from depression before becoming pregnant she'd been proactive about seeking support during pregnancy and asked for help from her mental health Midwife as soon as the intrusive thought started she asked me about what I was experiencing and she listened and she didn't judge she wasn't shocked there was no discomfort from her part so I felt it was a safe place and a safe person to speak to and that changed everything the consequences of not getting support can be serious and the risk of the worst outcome is rising in 2020 women were three times more likely to die by Suicide during pregnancy or the six weeks afterwards compared to the three years previously while the absolute numbers remain small the trend is significant researchers were so worried they even brought forwards the latest audit of maternal deaths in 2016 the UK government pledged a revolution in mental health services and there has been significant improvements since then this map from 2015 ranked Services according to a kind of traffic light system all the areas in red had no specialist maternal mental health services at all those in pink had just one member of staff compare that to new data from the maternal Mental Health Alliance seen here for the first time now almost the entire UK is at least yellow having some form of specialist multi-disciplinary provision everything in green also meets standards set by the Royal College of psychiatrists you can see there is still a significant disparity between nations in Northern Ireland for instance two out of five areas have no Specialist multi-disciplinary Team and there's still no mother and baby unit for mums who need inpatient mental health care is that a good enough service in 2023 I don't think any of them are good enough for 2023 I think we've made fantastic progress in the last particularly in the last sort of 10 years but I think all those Services need to expand and they need to be mother and baby units everywhere a spokesperson for Northern Ireland's Department of Health said all five trusts have appointed staff to their Community perinatal mental health teams and all are accepting referrals work is underway to identify a location for a mother and baby unit even in England the nation with the most comprehensive care the NHS doesn't appear to be on track to meet the goals it's set for this year only around half of trusts are so far providing care from preconception to two years after birth or offering Partners support Freedom of Information request newsnite collected from more than 20 perinatal mental health services around England show that what supporter family gets depends greatly on where they live in Nottinghamshire for example almost 90 percent of appointments are face to face in Oxford around two-thirds are held remotely there are different reasons for rejecting referrals to in East London more than 20 women were turned away from specialist support last year due to limited capacity and while in some places the average waiting time between referral and appointment is 11 days in Kettering more than one in five women has to wait more than three months for mums like Eleanor who urgently need support that can feel like a lifetime it needs to be as quick as possible because it's not just about the patient who is struggling it's about the vulnerable human being that they've just brought into the world all nations have set aside more money for this area of Health Care the problem is that funding isn't always spent in England almost three quarters of areas forecast and under spend in 2022 UK wide over 15 million pounds allocated wasn't spent recruitment was the biggest problem either teams didn't have enough confidence in the funding to hire or staff just weren't available and now that we've seen some progress but we are at risk of stalling if not going backwards because the money isn't actually reaching where it is intended but we know it comes down to leadership leadership from government leadership from the NHS leadership from the Department of Health and NHS England together that combined that can make a difference it's it's miles better now I have a brilliant relationship with my daughter we have a really good Bond I do still sometimes struggle with elements of my potential depression so for instance intrusive thoughts so at the moment I don't bath my daughter by myself I have a plan in place to get to that point but I am fully aware of how well I need to look after myself and what I need to do and to look after myself Eleanor has built a strong support network of professionals and other mums nationally despite the progress campaigners stress there's no room for complacency because when the right care is provided the impact on mothers and their families is clear

#Womens #lives #risk #lack #maternal #mental #health #support #BBC #Newsnight

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