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Specialist Mental Health Midwives

Specialist Mental Health Midwives play a crucial role in improving the quality of maternity services and supporting the development and implementation of integrated pathways of care for women with perinatal mental illness. They are a critical part of multiagency perinatal mental health clinical pathways. However they are neither a substitute for specialist perinatal mental health care, nor for the mental health care delivered by all midwives. Mental health care is a core part of the role of all midwives: good maternity care means achieving good maternal mental and physical health, thereby improving outcomes for women and their families in this generation and the next.

What do Perinatal Midwives do?

  • Perinatal Mental Health Midwives provide the following:
  • Perinatal mental Health education and training for Midwives to ensure the Perinatal mental Health needs of all women are integrated in to their maternity care
  • A source of advice for Midwives and other Clinicians
  • Act as champions, ensuring perinatal mental health is everybody's business
  • Contributing to the development and implementation of Perinatal mental Health care Pathways
  • A point of contact for the multidisciplinary team with regard to perinatal mental health
  • Ensure quality improvement through the adoption and implementation of the latest national policies and evidence-based care regarding perinatal mental health
  • Providing specialist support and expert advice to women and their families, ensuring integrated care across the multidisciplinary midwifery, obstetric and mental health teams.
  • A strategic role to liaise with other mental health professionals.

The Perinatal Mental Health Midwifery services are tailored according to the local population so may vary across the region.