Perinatal Mental Health

This module is currently awaiting confirmation of Higher Education Funding.

The module is suitable for all healthcare practitioners who work with women and families, and anyone with an interest in perinatal mental health. The NICE guidelines for antenatal and postnatal mental health provide a clear remit for the prediction, detection and appropriate referral of women experiencing perinatal mental health problems during pregnancy and after childbirth. Lack of training has been identified as a barrier to effective implementation of the NICE guidelines nationally and locally. This module has been designed in collaboration with the Hull Perinatal Mental Health Team to enable students to:

• Gain an in-depth understanding of perinatal mental health
• Recognise current skills and how to develop and promote these further
• Have an understanding of what perinatal mental health is and how it impacts on families and the individual
• Gain a greater knowledge of service provision and service requirement

Sessions include:

• The lived experience of perinatal mental health problems
• Primary care services, signposting and patient referral
• Therapeutic underpinnings of perinatal mental health
• Medication in pregnancy and breastfeeding
• Treatments and screening
• PMH problems: the needs of family members
• Promoting and exploring team work
• Post-traumatic stress disorder
• Fear of childbirth and implications for services