Next week (30th Apr to 6th May) is the second UK Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week. The aim is to not only to raise awareness but to also offer lots of information and support surrounding all aspects of every type of Perinatal Mental Health problem. And yes there are many types! (Read this post for more on that).
Our hosts are The Perinatal Mental Health Partnership – a fantastic group formed of parents with lived experience, healthcare professionals and peer support workers, many of whom I feel lucky enough to call friends.
There are events taking place up and down the country in aid of Perinatal Mental Health, as well as plenty of online events. The theme for this year is “Support For All” which is such a fantastic sentiment, and each day has it’s own topic too:
- Mon 30th Apr – What is perinatal mental health?
- Tues 1st May – Support from healthcare professionals
- Weds 2nd May – The Village (this is also World Maternal Mental Health Day)
- Thurs 3rd May -Dads
- Fri 4th May – Positivity Pot
The wonderful Twitter chat #pndhour will be happening every night at 8pm and there will be Facebook Lives throughout the week with experts in each field:
- Mon 30th Apr – 10.30am – Maternal OCD
- Tues 1st May – 7.30pm – Breastfeeding & medication advice from Dr Wendy Jones
- Wed 2nd May – 10am – Dr Stephanie De Giorgio
- Thurs 3rd May – Dads In Mind (time tbc)
- Thurs 3rd May – Action on Postpartum Psychosis (time tbc)
You can find information regarding all the week’s events on The Perinatal Mental Health Partnership Facebook page.
In terms of my involvement here at The Butterfly Mother, I’ve teamed up as usual with Lotus Petal Family Support and we’ll be hosting a photo challenge – we’ll each be posting a photo a day on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook relating to the day’s prompt (see below). We chose these prompts to reflect the daily topics of the awareness week.
As with our previous photo challenge we would love as many of you as possible to join in the challenge by posting your own photos and sharing your own words of support, encouragement or experience. You are free to interpret the prompt in whatever way you wish and please use the hashtags #pmhpphoto and #maternalmhmatters so we can find your photos.
We hope that the challenge will help those currently struggling to know they are not alone and that they will recover with help and support.
Secondly, we’ll be sharing a new You Tube video every day next week, again with a subject relating to the day’s theme. These will include lots of information, support and advice and we’d love you to watch, like and share as much as you can in order for our message to reach more people. You can subscribe to our channel here.
I’m so excited to be playing a tiny part in this year’s event and I can’t wait to connect with as many of you as possible over the course of next week. And please make sure you’re following myself, Lotus Petal and The Perinatal Mental Health Partnership on our social media platforms for updates.