Mums need Perinatal Mental health understanding, trauma informed care and kindness – let’s work together to create change
The Mas project is raising awareness of the need for perinatal mental health training and application of this knowledge with sensitivity, understanding and care towards women. We are campaigning for the Think family model to be used when working with women who have children on the child protection register and integrated with a perinatal mental health lens. We would like to see reform of the case conferencing process.
We wish to highlight the MBRRACE report statistics and please see the link to the lay summary and relevant reference from the report.
We have also referenced the Birth Companions, Birth Charter
The number of women with social services involvement who died has risen to 22%, the highest proportion since reporting began.
It is also likely that the number of women with social complexities and multiple disadvantage is higher than reported as social risk factors are often the most poorly recorded in women’s notes. Social risk factors, as well as ethnicity and migrant status must be better recorded in order to provide culturally-sensitive, individualised care. Inequalities will continue if women’s individual circumstances are not recognised and considered during her maternity journey. Community advocacy and involvement of community voices in service development or processes can help find solutions and produce change.
Currently, women who are attending our service are reporting negative experiences that are overwhelming and retraumatising. We are also extremely concerned about the tragic rise in maternal teenage suicide.
We believe that action on the Ray Jones report and Mary Renfrew Report is essential and we feel that steps could be taken to create cultural change, promote training and understanding of perinatal mental health, the importance of attachment and infant mental health and the impact of adverse childhood experiences and trauma.
For more information about the Mas project:
https://www.wrda.net/projects/maternal-advocacy-and-support-project