Young mums are at a higher risk of experiencing mental illness during pregnancy and after birth and are more likely to face additional challenges.
As part of our Creating Connections project, we have worked with the Maternal Mental Health Alliance to develop materials aimed at increasing understanding of young mums’ mental health needs. Additionally, Mental Health Foundation has created resources highlighting the importance of peer support and how to provide it effectively.
They’ve been designed to support different groups whose work can have an impact on young mums’ mental health:
- Policy makers: specific support for young mums should be a key part of the wider policy agenda around maternal mental health and suicide prevention.
- Commissioners: it’s vital to ensure that services in a local area support the needs of young mums.
- Service providers: services undertake crucial work to support young mums with their mental health at a time when the healthcare system is overstretched.
- Voluntary, community and social enterprises: organisations within the VCSE sector offer crucial, holistic support for young mums with their mental health.
Each resource has been created with a set of specific suggestions to help these groups, but they also contain useful information such as key statistics, information and themes that you might find useful. They also contain links to other useful documents and information to help support young mums.
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