As part of the Bipolar Awareness Day 2012 series, Psychiatrist Dr Ian Jones talks to Clare Dolman, Chair of Bipolar UK, about how bipolar can affect women, particularly during pregnancy and after birth.

Click Here to visit the The Royal College of Psychiatrists website & listen to the podcast.

Our 'More than baby blues?' presentation at the Cheltenham Science Festival this year was very well received with a turnout of nearly 100 people. Considering the damp, cold and very blustery night, we were impressed by the audience's stamina!

Tracy spoke very honestly and was forthright about the horrors - and the humorous aspects of her experience of PP – thank you Tracy.

The response the three speakers, Dr Ian Jones, Clare Dolman and Tracy Vicker received was excellent, with plenty of interesting questions from the audience at the end. People came up afterwards to thank us for a very informative talk and said they felt they had a much better understanding of the condition than previously.

Well done and thank you to the speakers, supporters and organisers. Also, a big thank you to all those who attended, we hope you enjoyed it as much as we did!

I would really like to chat with you about your experience of Postpartum Psychosis. What was it like for you and your family following your diagnosis? And what types of services/support were made available to you? This should take no more than an hour and I am happy to meet wherever is most convenient for you.

If you are willing to take part in the study or would like more information, please email me, Catherine on u1037626@uel.ac.uk or phone Claire Wickham on 0208 223 4174 to leave a message.

National Conference 2012, Saturday 23rd June

Following the airing of ‘Unravelling Eve’ program on BBC Radio 4, the feedback we have received has been tremendous. The program was extremely well received by people from all backgrounds and interests and many have been in touch expressing their gratitude to everyone involved for their time and efforts in making it happen.

The women who took part in the workshops also received a great deal of positive and supportive feedback from friends and family. Having listened to the program, they now have a greater understanding of the challenges the women went through, and some friends were surprised by how little they already knew. We are very grateful to everyone who took part and appreciate how difficult and emotional it can be to speak about things they have probably never spoken about before. There was an instant rapport amongst the women and very quickly strong friendships formed. They all reported that taking part was a fabulous opportunity to finally meet and chat freely with others who instantly understood. They described the workshops as an extremely positive experience, emotional yet healing and cathartic.  The program is available to listen to by Clicking here.

Between one in 500 and one in a thousand women suffer from postpartum psychosis after childbirth. It's an illness which often appears rapidly and without warning and leaves women in the grip of psychotic delusions or of mania. They talk of losing touch with reality and feeling split and fragmented. However, because it's comparatively rare and can happen to women with no history of mental illness, postpartum psychosis may go undiagnosed or be confused with post natal depression. In fact if it's treated properly, recovery from this very severe disorder can be very swift.

Now Radio 4 has been offered unique access to a group of women who have experienced the illness. They're taking part in an art project, funded by the Wellcome Trust, whose aim is to raise awareness of the condition.

As they meet at a workshop and in the artist Joan Molloy's studio they talk openly about what they went through, the hallucinations they suffered in the depths of the psychosis and their journey back to health. They also tackle the difficult topics of whether they wanted to harm themselves or their baby, the decision about whether to have a second child, and their perception of themselves as mothers.

The art project is supported by leading perinatal psychiatrist, Dr Ian Jones, who is working with teams in Cardiff and Birmingham universities to try to discover what it is about the physical experience of childbirth that triggers the illness. He tells us if they were able to establish whether some women had a genetic pre-disposition to the condition, it would be possible to predict which women were at high risk and to take the right steps before rather than after the illness has struck.

Presented by former journalist - Clare Dolman, who suffered an episode of postpartum psychosis herself after the birth of her first child twenty two years ago. She is a trustee of Action on Postpartum Psychosis and now works to raise awareness of the disorder.

Producer: Philippa Goodrich
A White Pebble Media production for BBC Radio 4.