During Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week, #MMHAW23, and following today’s theme of Health Care Professionals hub to support healing, we are delighted to share our updated Good Practice Points (GPP) on Postpartum Psychosis.

GPP – Postpartum Psychosis

Postpartum psychosis (PP), also known as puerperal psychosis and postnatal psychosis, is a severe illness that involves hallucinations, delusions, mania, severe confusion, or unusual behaviour occurring, often with acute onset, in the postnatal period.

These Good Practice Points set out what health visitors need to know about Postpartum Psychosis.

Authored by Dr Judy Shakespeare, retired GP, Royal College of General Practitioners Clinical Champion in perinatal mental health, and in association with Action on Postpartum Psychosis, this GPP provides up-to-date evidence and references.

At the start of UK Maternal Mental Health (MMH) week (1-7 May), the iHV is delighted to announce that we are working with Action on Postpartum Psychosis (APP), a national charity supporting women and families affected by Postpartum Psychosis (PP).

In order to ensure that future mental health care of women is what women want/need, we ensure that the APP voice is central to our training. Women, who are experts by experience from APP, deliver on the iHV Perinatal Mental Health (PMH) programmes so all the health and social care professionals we train understand what they need to do to best support women and their families.

The death of Alice Gibson-Watt has lessons for us all and, as part of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, both the iHV and APP are committed to improving outcomes for women and their families. Key to this is learning from experts by experience and their families. The iHV was delighted to hear Hannah Bisset (APP Northern Regional Representative) raising parity of esteem for mental health through sharing her story on BBC Radio 4 on Sunday. Listen to her from minute 32.45 here.