Who is this forum for?

This forum is for you if you:

  • have personal experience of postpartum psychosis,
  • experienced manic or psychotic symptoms after having a baby or while pregnant,
  • are a partner, family member or friend of someone with postpartum psychosis,
  • are at high risk of postpartum psychosis because you have a diagnosis of bipolar disorder (or another diagnosis or previous history that puts you at higher risk).

For information on other mental illnesses relating to childbirth, you may find it helpful to have a look at Mind’s information on perinatal mental health problems.

We may not be able to respond in an emergency and are not a crisis service. If you need urgent help, please contact:

If you feel you can’t keep yourself or others safe right now, please call 999 or go to your nearest Accident and Emergency (A&E) department.

The forum is for peer support only. Health professionals, researchers, companies and journalists should contact APP directly (via email: app@app-network.org).

Personal information

  • Your username will be shown next to your forum posts. This is a public forum so it’s usually best not to use your real name.
  • We also suggest that you don’t include the real name of partners, children, family members or friends in your posts.
  • Please don’t give the personal names of any professionals. It’s fine to speak about your support in a more general way (for example, ‘my CPN’ or ‘my doctor’). Personal names of professionals will be removed by moderators.
  • Please don’t share your contact details in public forum posts. Any personal or identifying information may be edited or removed by moderators to protect you.
  • The forum is a space for group support. We recommend that you don’t have personal contact with people via private message unless this has been set up for you by APP. If you would like to be in touch with someone individually for peer support and you live in the UK or Ireland, we recommend that you request one to one peer support through APP. APP can match you with a trained peer support volunteer with similar experience to you. You can request this support here: app-network.org/peer-support

Using the forum

  • We want to make sure our forum is a safe and welcoming place. Please be kind and supportive.
  • HealthUnlocked is designed for you to be anonymous. As long as you are following the guidelines by not sharing identifiable information (such as real names, location, and contact information), your posts should be safe to be viewed by, and help anyone.
  • When writing a post, you can choose to make it visible to ‘anyone’ or to the ‘community only’. Sharing with ‘anyone’ includes people who are not yet members of the community or HealthUnlocked, but who are looking for help online. Sharing with the ‘community only’ means only users signed up to our community can see the full post.
  • Try to write updates and replies on your original post rather than writing lots of posts about the same topic. This helps us make sure that everyone’s posts get seen.
  • Everyone’s experience is different. It’s ok to share what helped you but please make sure you write from your own experience and don’t presume that a treatment or resource that worked for you is the right thing for another user.
  • Look after yourself. Writing about your experiences or reading other people’s thoughts and experiences can sometimes bring up unexpected emotions. Do take care reading posts if you are feeling vulnerable. If you need to take a break or step away from the community please do.
  • Rude, judgemental, critical or unhelpful posts may be edited or removed by moderators. It’s ok to swear but not if it is directed at another user.
  • Please don’t post anything racist, homophobic, sexist, transphobic or otherwise discriminatory or offensive in nature.
  • Please respect each other’s privacy and keep conversations within the community.
  • We may edit or add a ‘message from APP admins’ to posts that could be distressing to other forum users, in particular if they refer to details of harm or attempted harm. Occasionally we may have to remove a post that is very distressing or upsetting to other forum users. We will always contact you if we edit or remove your posts under these circumstances to explain why and we will offer you support via private message instead.
  • Please don’t promote your own personal businesses or products (it’s ok to share what helped you but not if you are making a profit).
  • Please tell us if anything makes you feel uncomfortable or worried. It’s best to do this privately rather than posting publicly. Email us at app@app-network.org or use the ‘report’ button on the post or reply that you are concerned about.

About our moderators and supporters

  • The forum is managed and moderated by a team of peer support coordinators. They have ‘at_APP’ after their name and a ‘Partner’, ‘Moderator’ or ‘Administrator’
  • APP staff and trustees who are not moderators have an ‘APP’ badge next to their name.
  • We also have a team of trained peer support volunteers. All our volunteers have recovered from PP or are the partner or family member of someone who has recovered. Volunteers have a ‘Volunteer’ badge next to their name.
  • All of our moderators and volunteers are ‘experts by experience’. They are not counsellors or health professionals. They can offer their own experiences, empathy and signpost to resources and support that might be helpful.
  • We check the forum daily and try to respond as quickly as we can. You can help us by emailing us on app@app-network.org or using the ‘report’ button if you see anything that shouldn’t be there. Please note that although the forum is accessible 24/7, it is not moderated 24/7 - we will reply as soon as we can.
  • We respect your confidentiality. We will only tell someone else what you share here if you or someone else are in immediate danger of serious harm and if we have enough information about who you are and where you live to help you get effective support. Personal data would be processed in line with our privacy policy. We also have to pass on information if a terrorist threat has been made or we have been ordered to share information with the courts.

By signing up to our forum, you agree to these guidelines and HealthUnlocked's terms and conditions.

Our moderators may delete or edit any posts that do not meet these guidelines. We will always try and let you know if we have done this, and explain why.

Users who refuse to follow the guidelines of this community and/or of HealthUnlocked may be restricted from the community. Restricted members will not be able to reply or post in the community, and will not be able to contact any member of the community.

Occasionally we may have to make updates to these guidelines. We will always post a public message to let everyone know that we have done so.

If you have any questions, comments or concerns please email app@app-network.org.