Mental-health help vital for struggling new parents
‘ The restrictions in place to stop the spread of Covid-19 have made it more difficult to identify mothers, fathers and partners in need of support...’
Between April 2020 and January 2021, the NSPCC helpline received more than 3,600 child welfare contacts about parental mental health across the UK – a 20% increase compared to the number of contacts received the previous year. In Infant Mental Health Awareness Week, Dr Sarah Witcombe-Hayes outlines the charity’s support for new mothers and babies
JUST shy of 30,000 babies are born in Wales every year and the first 1,000 days is a particularly significant period for a baby’s development.
What happens during this time lays the foundations for every child’s health, wellbeing, learning and behaviour.
Making sure babies have the best start in life can be challenging for some families and the last year will have placed additional pressures on expectant and new parents at an already demanding time.
Babies born since the start of the pandemic have been reliant on care from parents who are more likely to be experiencing heightened stress, isolation and poor mental health.
The restrictions in place to stop the spread of Covid-19 have made it more difficult to identify mothers, fathers and partners in need of support.
This, coupled with gaps in vital mental health services and the scaling back of universal perinatal care, has left some new parents and babies vulnerable and hidden from sight.
Many have struggled in silence with unidentified perinatal mental health problems, while others have been unable to access the mental health services they’ve sought.
Some mothers, fathers and partners have been more reluctant to ask for help and their sense of isolation has been greater because of the social-distancing restrictions in place – significantly disrupting their support networks.
It’s why giving parents confidence to seek support during the perinatal period, reassuring them they aren’t alone and making them aware of the services available to them is important – now more than ever.
Prior to the pandemic, as many as one in five mums experienced perinatal mental health problems, and fathers and partners are susceptible too.
Navigating poor mental health during the perinatal period can make it more difficult to provide sensitive and attuned care that babies need for healthy social and emotional development.
However, the good news is that with the right kind of early help and support, the impact of poor mental health can be avoided or overcome and positive outcomes for the family are possible.
Keeping children safe is everyone’s responsibility and the NSPCC’s Fight for a Fair Start campaign is pushing hard to address some of these gaps so that parents in Wales and across the UK get the mental health support they need during pregnancy and after birth, including specialist help if needed.
Members of the public can help make this happen by signing an NSPCC petition, via nspcc.org.uk/ fair-start, calling on governments across the UK to help parents get through the ongoing crisis.
Parents must be supported at the earliest opportunity if they struggle with their mental health in pregnancy or after birth and their postcode should certainly not determine the type of support they can receive.
Specialist perinatal mental health services need to be accessible when families need it most – wherever they live.
And services across every health board in Wales must be adequately resourced so they can meet national quality standards.
While there has been welcome increased investment in community perinatal mental health services, significant gaps in provision remain, and until April 2021 Wales had been without a Mother and Baby Unit (MBU) since 2013.
MBUs can be life-changing – they are designed and resourced to treat women who experience severe perinatal mental health problems, while also supporting them to meet the physical and emotional needs of their babies and develop healthy relationships.
They keep mums and babies together at a time that is so vital for a child’s development.
While we await plans for a permanent MBU, an interim facility in Wales has now opened in Swansea Bay, which is a significant step forward in ensuring that some women and their families in Wales can access this vital specialist provision.
However, to avoid failing a generation of babies the Welsh Government needs to address the problems new parents are facing by making sure there are accessible high-quality specialist perinatal mental health services available in every area in Wales.
That, in addition to a dedicated perinatal mental health midwife and health visitor in each health board to help identify and support women and their families affected by poor maternal mental health.
Dads and partners cannot continue to be overlooked either.
One in 10 dads experience mental health problems during pregnancy and within the year after birth, but there are significant gaps in identifying and providing support to fathers experiencing these difficulties. Research has shown that when fathers do seek help with postnatal depression and anxiety their needs are not understood or met by health services.
This needs to change, and more investment overall is needed for perinatal mental health services to support expectant and new parents in Wales, so that all babies get the best start in life.
As part of its pandemic recovery planning, of which children should be front and centre, early and adequate support for families struggling with perinatal mental health has to be a significant consideration of the next Welsh Government.
Without increased investment, there is a real and shared concern that the pandemic will have a detrimental impact on the mental health and wellbeing of parents and babies that is severe and long-lasting.