A new program created at UMass Medical School called Lifeline4Moms will help obstetricians and other primary care providers screen, diagnose and refer for treatment women suffering from depression during and after pregnancy, according to a FaceBook Live broadcast with Nancy Byatt, DO, MS, MBA, and Tiffany Moore Simas, MD, MPH, MEd, who created the program.
“If we’re asking obstetricians to screen for mental health conditions we need to support them with training,” said Dr. Moore Simas, associate professor of obstetrics & gynecology, pediatrics, psychiatry and quantitative health sciences, in the May 3 interview on the UMass Medical School FaceBook page. “It's important for women to have honest conversations about how they're feeling. The more we share and the more open we are, the more we can help the women we care for.”
Drs. Byatt and Moore Simas developed Lifeline4Moms based on the Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Program for Moms (MCPAP for Moms), which has helped more than 4,000 women statewide since its launch in 2014. The programs provide perinatal depression education, consultation and resources for obstetricians and other frontline maternal care providers.
“The reason we created Lifeline4Moms is to help others do the same thing we’ve done in Massachusetts,” said Byatt, associate professor of psychiatry, obstetrics & gynecology and quantitative health sciences and medical director for MCPAP for Moms. “We are proud and excited that our program inspired Massachusetts Congresswoman Katherine Clark to put forth federal legislation for funding for other states to have programs like MCPAP for Moms.”
Signed into law in 2016, the Bringing Postpartum Depression Out of the Shadows Act provides $5 million per year from 2018 to 2022 for states to develop screening and treatment programs for mothers.
Learn more at the Lifeline4Moms and MCPAP for Moms websites.
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