Woman’s Hospital (Woman’s) is on a mission to care for women and babies while destigmatizing mental health. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, maternal mental health conditions, such as anxiety, perinatal and postpartum depression, and birth-related PTSD, are among the most common complications of pregnancy and childbirth, affecting one in five women. Of those affected, 75 percent go untreated. Additionally, mental health conditions are a leading cause of maternal mortality and morbidity in the United States.
“Providers in our community have long been concerned about the distance that pregnant and postpartum patients had to travel to get mental health placement, and that they would have the appropriate level of obstetric oversight while in care,” says Cheri Johnson, Woman’s chief nursing officer. “Typically, mental health facilities that house both men and women can cause discomfort for pregnant and postpartum women who are trying to do the work to be healthier.”
With a mission to improve the health of women and infants, Woman’s used a shelled-out space to create the Perinatal Mental Health Unit (PMHU), a 10-bed inpatient unit for pregnant and postpartum women with a primary diagnosis of a psychiatric nature. Woman’s PMHU is one of only a few nationwide.
