One in seven women experience depression during pregnancy and after they give birth. An article by Tiffany Moore Simas, MD, MPH, MEd, and Nancy Byatt, DO, MS, MBA published online in The Conversation explains how a model they created in Massachusetts to ensure that women with depression get the help they need is being implemented in other states.
Dr. Byatt, associate professor of psychiatry, obstetrics & gynecology and quantitative health sciences and director of the Division of Women’s Mental Health, and Dr. Simas, associate professor of obstetrics & gynecology, pediatrics, psychiatry and quantitative health sciences, are co-directors of the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Program for Moms in Massachusetts. MCPAP was developed to integrate depression into obstetric care in Massachusetts. It makes expert psychiatric advice a phone call away for obstetricians, pediatricians and family medicine providers, who are the front line for pregnant and postpartum women.
“We are now evaluating how the program has affected outcomes for the more than 4,000 patients directly served since launch,” Simas and Byatt wrote in The Conversation article.
A new program, Lifeline4Moms, also created under the direction of Simas and Byatt, is taking the MCPAP for Moms model national. Washington and Wisconsin are starting programs and 17 other states are seeking federal grants that are now available to establish such programs.
Read the full article here:https://bit.ly/2Jf8oeC
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