Rethinking Postpartum Mental Health Care in the U.S.

KQED's Forum

Every year about 500,000 Americans who give birth experience anxiety, guilt and insomnia after their baby is born -- and some are even suicidal. The postpartum mental health care they receive varies greatly. Mother and Baby Units are considered the gold standard of inpatient psychiatric care for new mothers in England and several other countries, but none exist in the U.S., despite mental health issues being one of the leading causes of maternal death. We’ll look at the differences in postpartum mental health care in the U.S. and the U.K, and learn about California’s first inpatient perinatal psychiatry unit.