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.