Today is World Maternal Mental Health Day and the Rotunda Hospital is raising awareness about the mental health issues that individuals deal with during pregnancy and after birth.
The busiest maternity hospital in Ireland has said that even though mental health issues like postnatal depression are spoken of openly, there are not enough conversations about the high cases of depression during pregnancy, anxiety and eating disorders.
According to research, around one in five will suffer with mental health issues during or after pregnancy. This can include anxiety, loss of confidence or exhaustion.
A spokesperson for the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin has said, “the hospital experienced an increase in patient presentations for general anxiety and severe mental illness through its Specialist Perinatal Mental Health service”, based on figures from 2021.
“In 2021, 4,886 sessions were offered to women, representing a 4.3% increase on the number of appointments in 2020. Of these appointments, 1,289 were with new patients”.
They continued, “There were 1,022 clinical group sessions held in the hospital covering three areas: emotional wellbeing in pregnancy, fear of birth and ‘Me to Mum’, which focuses on the psychological changes that come with motherhood. An estimated 413 women attended the group sessions”.
21 home visits took place in 2021 due to Covid-19 restrictions. Specialist perinatal mental health services relied on telemedicine, including moving groups online, during the pandemic.
In February 2021, a psychological birth trauma service was introduced. 102 women attended the clinic where they were shown how to understand symptoms of post-traumatic stress after the birth of their babies.
A perinatal psychiatrist in the Rotunda Hospital, Dr. Richard Duffy, has said, “The current services in place in the Rotunda Hospital are being absorbed by the huge demand that we have seen in the past two years during the Covid-19 pandemic.”
“He continued, “This increased demand is not only specific to the Rotunda, with mental health professionals across all disciplines continuing to experience increased presentations”.
“To ensure that we can fully support women and their mental health during pregnancy and postnatally, the existing posts need to be filled, additional services need to be funded especially in peripheral maternity centres and a dedicated Mother and Baby unit needs to be opened”.
