Maternal Mental Health

Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week UK (MMHAW) was born in 2017 through a group of 11 perinatal mental health survivors, including Eve Canavan, who is the award winning co-ordinator of the week. Eve and colleagues met on Twitter in 2014 and together they formed the Perinatal Mental Health Partnership – a group with a passion who wanted to create an awareness campaign but who had no budget. They’ve achieved all they have through the power of social media, and in 2020 attracted the attention of the Duchess of Cambridge

Episode #10 of Comeback Coach is dedicated to maternal mental health with special guests Eve Canavan, Anna Ceesay and Mia Scotland. In this episode we explore:

• Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week UK

• Pre-natal depression

• What England’s new maternal mental health hubs should look like

• Doulas – who are they, why use one and how to choose her?

• Post-partum psychosis – what is it?

• Risk factors for post-partum psychosis

• How other cultures look after new mothers

Anna Ceesay: Journalist and founder of Motherdom.co.uk, the first UK online media platform to address issues of maternal mental health. Anna experienced pre-natal depression at eight months pregnant.

Mia Scotland: Perinatal clinical psychologist, doula, author of Birth Shock & Why Post Natal Depression Matters.

Evie Canavan: Coordinator of UK Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week for Perinatal Mental Health Partnership and postpartum psychosis survivor.

Taken together, perinatal depression, anxiety and psychosis carry a total long-term cost to society of about £8.1 billion for each one-year cohort of births in the UK. This is equivalent to just under £10,000 for every single birth in the country. That’s according to research by the Centre for Mental Health, 2014.

This Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week we’re raising money for PANDAS Foundation. Every download of the special episode in May = a donation from us. We’re also making a donation for every participant at our free Comeback Conversation event in May (see below).

PANDAS Foundation is a UK-wide support service for families suffering prenatal and postnatal mental health issues. Their aim is to make sure no parent, family or carer feels alone. They offer free support services for every family who needs it through their free helpline, email service, support groups and motivational media channels.

We were introduced to PANDAS via Anna. PANDAS helped Anna when she most needed it; before the birth of her second child. She was diagnosed with pre-natal depression, something we don’t hear much about, do we?

Eve is a survivor of post-partum psychosis and worked on the Eastenders storyline around postpartum psychosis. You can listen to Eve talking about her experience on the special episode of our podcast, COMEBACK COACH, marking MMHAW.