Perinatal mental health resources
Commissioning and service improvement resources
This guide is for commissioners and staff involved in maternity and neonatal care. It describes the underpinning principles of and good practice for supporting good mental health and psychological wellbeing in maternity and neonatal settings. It also considers the role of specialist maternal mental health services (MMHS) in supporting this function.
The good practice guide about Involving and supporting partners and significant others, is for commissioners and those working in specialist perinatal mental health services.
The guide describes how to provide women and their families with a positive experience of care, with services joined up around them. It also describes how to provide care that involves and supports partners and families in ways that can improve outcomes for all family members.
We have published a video animation to accompany this guide.
The good practice guide to support implementation of trauma-informed care in the perinatal period applies to all staff (clinical and non-clinical) working with perinatal women in maternity and mental health services, although it may be more pertinent to certain roles. All staff can play a part in ensuring women and their families feel safe and secure in the care setting. This guide is also for parents to help them understand what good trauma-informed practice might look like.
The delivering preconception care to women with serious mental illness guide supports healthcare professionals in primary and secondary care to embed preconception advice, support and referral into existing care pathways for women with serious mental illness.
Perinatal mental health care pathways were published in May 2018. These set out the policy drivers and strategic context for transforming perinatal mental health care, as well as pathways to deliver transformation. The guidance provides services with evidence on what works in perinatal mental health and case studies of positive practice.
The Perinatal mental health outcomes implementation manual focuses on good practice examples, tools, tips and information to help specialist perinatal mental health services embed appropriate perinatal mental health outcomes measures at a local level, using outcome measures which are already in the Mental health services dataset.
Public Health England perinatal mental health fingertips profile
New information leaflets for mothers and their families were released in November 2018 by Royal College of Psychiatrists. Written jointly by perinatal psychiatrists, women with lived experience of perinatal mental illness, and their partners, they provide details on what services are available and how to access help. Access the following online:
- What are perinatal mental health services?
- Information about mother and baby units
- Help for women and their partners to understand what ‘safeguarding children’ means
- The use of lithium in pregnancy and breastfeeding
- The use of antipsychotics in pregnancy and breastfeeding
- The use of valproate in women and girls who could get pregnant
- Postpartum psychosis – information for carers
- Perinatal obsessive compulsive disorder – information for carers