The Postcode Lottery of Care

Abstract

This series stresses the importance of perinatal mental health and wellbeing. Policy and guidelines have been written to help support midwives in delivering care so that a woman’s mental health is treated as comparable with her physical health. In this fourth article, Claire Homeyard et al explain that one in five women will experience mental health problems during pregnancy or up to a year following birth. Whilst timely access to perinatal mental health services should be available for all women who need them, there continues to be an unacceptable variation in the UK. This article describes what one service in north-east London is doing to meet women’s needs, demonstrating what can be implemented to improve perinatal mental health provision for women and families in other services.