Raising awareness of postpartum psychosis this Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week
This week (3 – 9 May) marks Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week, a campaign organised by The Perinatal Mental Health Partnership to raise awareness of the fact that 1 in 10 women experience a mental health problem during pregnancy or in the first year after birth.
At APP, we know that postpartum psychosis plays a key role within this and it can have a devastating impact on many women and their families. In fact, postpartum psychosis can affect 1-2 in every 1,000 new mothers in the UK each year, and a lack of awareness makes it harder for families to reach out for help and more challenging for health professional to spot the signs.
As such, we are going to be using the week to further raise awareness of this illness and campaign for better services – including more Mother and Baby Units to help keep families together and to recover more quickly.
How you can help
We’d love for as many people as possible to help us spread our message and signpost people to support and there are many ways you can do this:
- Share our social media graphics. Hop on over to Twitter (@ActionOnPP) or Instagram (@actiononpp) and share our ‘What is Postpartum Psychosis’ content – not forgetting to tag us and use the relevant hashtags too (#postpartumpsychosis and #MaternalMentalHealthAwarenessWeek)
- On your own social media, share why you think Mother and Baby Units are important, tagging @ActionOnPP
- If you’ve experienced postpartum psychosis and would like to join our peer support or storyteller network, please sign up using this form.
- If you’d like to support one of the important Mother and Baby Unit campaigns that one of our dedicated volunteers is leading on, please check out Oorlagh’s Northern Ireland petition here
- To raise much needed funds in support of our work, why not check out our #MilesForMumsAndBabies fundraising challenge? Grab your mates and walk, run, cycle or swim to raise money for APP.
For further information on postpartum psychosis please use this link
If you are in urgent need of help, please follow this link for useful information