Welcome to our ever-growing Alliance for perinatal mental health!

The Perinatal Mental Health Alliance of NL (PMHANL) aims to enhance awareness and promote care and supports for perinatal mental health across the province.

Thank you to all who celebrated World Maternal Mental Health Day!

What a successful year! We celebrated through The 3rd Annual Flora's Walk, multiple municipalities engaged through proclamations and recognitions, a local Paint Night for Perinatal Mental Health, and multiple local media outlets highlighting the day. The Alliance concluded WMMHD with the launch of two surveys, with the help of the Daymark Foundation, to help better understand the status of PMH in our province.

Floras Walk:

Across our province, there were multiple organized Flora's Walks, from the east to west coast! Congratulations to Western Team in Corner Brook, St. John's Team, and Carbonear Eastern Rural Team on a successful walk. As well, congratulations to those who participated in their own individual Flora's Walks! Your efforts don't go unnoticed.

This year, 75% of fundraising efforts remain in the province to support perinatal mental health services and programming. Congratulations everyone!

Perinatal Mental Health Surveys

Thank you to everyone who participated in the Lived Experiences and the Community Organization and Providers surveys on perinatal mental health. Our surveys are now closed. We are in the process of reviewing the results and preparing them to share with you. Stay tuned for survey results to be released, and more exciting news to come!

On June 20th, we recognized World Paternal Mental Health Day

Did you know?

• 1 in 10 fathers will experience depression or anxiety during pregnancy or the first year following pregnancy?

• Depression and anxiety are twice as common in expecting new fathers as compared with global estimates in men

• Maternal depression is the most important risk factor for paternal depression

To learn more about Paternal Mental Health, check out this Fact Sheet developed by the Maternal Mental Health Leadership Alliance:

Call for Persons with Lived Experiences

We are excited to share that a local CBC News Reporter is working on a series about perinatal mental health in our province. As part of their efforts to capture the current status, CBC is looking for Alliance Members with lived experiences who are willing to speak with them about their experiences around accessing perinatal mental health care in our province.

If you are interested in sharing your experiences with CBC, please reach out to pmhanlconnect@gmail.com and we will connect you with the CBC Reporter.

Dad's Support Group - Free  

Postpartum International (PSI) help dads connect with other dads who have newborns up to toddlers. Our groups allow you to talk and listen to other dads as they process their experiences. Whether you are going through stress, feeling overwhelmed as you adjust to parenting, or trying to figure out how best to support your partner, our groups are here for you. You will learn about helpful tools/resources and realize you are not alone. Times vary for this group.

Registration and other supports for Dad can be found in the link below:

Postpartum Planning for Expecting Parents - Free Class 

Postpartum International (PSI) hosts a 2-hour class twice a month for expecting parents, as a space to assist in preparedness and skill building for parents' emotional well-being in the postpartum period.

The class will include education, discussion, a review of a postpartum plan, and resources. The main topics covered include postpartum physical recovery, partner support, self-care, support networks, lactation and emotional well-being, and perinatal mood and anxiety disorders.

All expectant parents are welcome: moms, birthing people, non-gestational parents, partners, couples, and single parents. If you are expecting a baby soon, you are welcome to join!

These classes are meant as a one-time session, so please only register once. This is a free resource, so please cancel your registration at least 24 hours in advance if you cannot attend the class to provide an opportunity for someone on the waitlist.

This month's classes are offered on:

• Wednesday, July 3rd 2024 @ 9:00pm NL Time

• Wednesday, July 17th 2024 @ 2:30pm NL Time

Registration can be found in the link below:

Perinatal Mental Health Virtual Book Club

Welcome to the Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Trainings (CPMHT) book club! Every 3 months we read a book (or more, if you have the capacity) on a topic that is important to our scope of practice: working with the perinatal population.

Next meeting will be September 24th @ 9:30 (NL Time).

Registration can be found below:

Community perinatal mental health teams and associations with perinatal mental health and obstetric and neonatal outcomes in pregnant women with a history of secondary mental health care in England: a national population-based cohort study
(Gurol-Urganci et al., 2024)

This study, published in March 2024 to The Lancet-Psychiatry, reports on the use of Community Perinatal Mental Health Teams and its impacts on perinatal mental health, obstetrical, and neonatal outcomes. Researchers found that where a community perinatal mental health team was available, there was an increase in access to secondary mental health care (a psychiatric hospital admission, a crisis resolution team contact, or community care) during pregnancy and in the first year after birth and a decrease in the risk of an acute relapse (a hospital admission or crisis resolution team contact) in the first year after birth.

The improved access to mental health services and reduction in acute postpartum relapse suggests that other countries could consider developing such specialist community perinatal mental health services.

To read the full text, visit:

Do you or your team have an event coming up related to Perinatal Mental Health? Let us know! We would love to share more updates from our community on our website and through newsletter! Email pmhanlconnect@gmail.com with your information.