Hospital focuses on pregnancy depression

said, “We believe that the innovative and accessible care offered by AHN at the Alexis Joy D’Achille Center will change women’s lives and put their families on the best possible start to a happy future.”

According to the foundation’s website, postpartum depression is a treatable illness that affects15 percent to 20 percent of women after giving birth — anywhere from a few weeks to a year after delivery. Yet only about 15 percent of women with perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, including postpartum depression, seek or receive treatment.

Since 2015, AHN and the foundation have partnered to connect women to care with the AHN Women’s Behavioral Health program. More than 820 women have been referred to the program in the past eight months, according to the recent announcement. Dedicated to the care of women with perinatal depression, the program has a psychiatrist, psychologist, clinical social worker and nurse practitioner.

Women are screened for depression at OB-GYN practices in the health network and further assessment and therapy is offered, as needed. In December, AHN opened its Mother-Baby Intensive Outpatient Program, in which women go to three hours of group psychotherapy, three days a week, also learning skills to improve the mother-infant relationship.

The new center will house that program, doctor’s offices, and the Mother-Baby Partial Hospitalization Program, for women attending five-hour group therapy sessions five days a week. Mothers with the most severe forms of perinatal depression can be hospitalized at Forbes Hospital, Monroeville.