Federica ensures that, without professional help, I would not have gone ahead. she had her son 13 months ago and, having lost her twin brother at the end of the pregnancy, she began to develop a very strong anxiety “The gynecologist saw me and advised me to come here.” Federica speaks from the Hospital Clínic Perinatal Mental Health Unit from Barcelona, where last year the first visits increased up to 37%. This first week of May is celebrated the Maternal Mental Health Week. The most common pathology is postpartum depression, suffered by 10% of mothers, followed by anxiety. It’s a “public health problem”, doctors warn.
“Me [esta unidad] It changed my life. Me and my child”, explains this Italian who landed in Barcelona in February 2020. She entered the unit when her baby was just five months. “For our bond it was wonderful. Before I had afraid to get close in case it hurt him. She didn’t go out with him I couldn’t even be alone with him in the room. And here I learned to be a mother”, explains Federica, who claims that these women “do not have to feel ashamed if there is something that is not right”. “Society forces us to be happy and sometimes you hide what you feel you feel guilty Here you learn that a lot of moms go through that,” ensures.
The Clínic’s Mental Health Unit has carried out more than 1,800 first visits mothers since 2018, the year of its creation and the inauguration of the Day Mare-Baby Hospital. In 2022 they were registered 411 first consultations, in front of 301 from the previous year. This represents an increase in 37% “we come more serious cases and more chronic and? they arrive later. Probably during the pandemic many women put off asking for help,” has indicated this Tuesday in an attention to the media the doctor Dawn Rock, psychiatrist and head of the Perinatal Mental Health Unit.
This service caters to women pregnant either puerperal (period from childbirth to six weeks after) with some mental disorder. “Maternal mental health can have a impact on the newborn the psychiatrist has recalled. In recent years, the perinatal mental disorders (PMD) have stood out as a “major public health problem” because of the impact they have on the health and the quality of life of women as well as their children in the short and long term.
Depending on the unit, the 75% of pregnant women or that are in the first year postpartum and have a mental disorder they are not diagnosed. Of the remaining 25%, only 10% receive treatment suited to their needs. Not all mothers feel a positive bond with your newborn, even though it was a wanted boy or girl. “One in five women They will have some mental pathology during pregnancy or postpartum – Dr. Roca has warned. It is more common to appear in the first four months but it can appear until the year”.
income risk
In parallel, the risk of hospital admission due to a mental disorder greater in the postpartum, even more than During pregnancy. They occur in women “hormonal changes” And till “cerebral”. There is also other risk factors, as “have no support” previously suffering a “severe mental disorder” wave “social vulnerability”. The most common pathology is postpartum depression (affecting one in 10 mothers), followed by the anxiety.
But, in addition, there are “high risk pathologies”, As the Bipolar disorder. “Women with this disorder have, during pregnancy, more risk of relapse. And then there is a very serious pathology that occurs in one in a thousand women what is the puerperal psychosis”, Rock has pointed out.
Apart from “accompaniment”, the unit offers “Psychiatric, health and pharmacological intervention”. According to the psychiatrist, the 65% of women with postpartum depression improve completely a year, but “it is very important specialized monitoring with appropriate treatments.”
Many things are “removed”
Lorraine is another of the women who come to this unit of the Clinic. She does it, this Tuesday, accompanied by her son, Bastian, of a year and a half. “He took almost a year coming and my experience here is wonderful. There is one before and one after. We have a lot of support, they accompany us, they teach us a lot,” explains this young woman.
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Lorena reports that, after giving birth, “many things were removed” from him. She was referred to this unit by her psychiatrist at Hospital del Mar. “When I had the baby I went into depression. one had already passed Depression due to the death of a family member but this time it was stronger,” he says.
In the unit they do workshops, meetings and teach users to “take care” of their own. “I recommend it to all mothers who are not well. Now I feel much stronger than at the beginning”, says Lorena.