THE Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership has created a web page dedicated to maternal mental health, ahead of Mental Health Awareness Week 2021.

The webpage lists services available for parents and carers and information on how to get support.

It comes after research reveals there are higher rates of anxiety and depression in some ethnic groups such as black and Asian families and these families are also found to be less likely to seek mental health support, according to The Motherhood Group and the Roshni-2 Project.

Migrant asylum seeking and refugee mothers are meanwhile at least twice as likely to develop postnatal depression than non-migrant mothers yet often struggle to access mental health care, according to the health programme for the European union, 2017.

The LGBT foundation has also reported that lesbian and bisexual mums and co- parents commonly experience prejudice and discrimination from health care staff whilst pregnant.

Services featured on the webpage include psychological therapy services, which provide talking therapy to help with a range of common mental health problems that can happen around the time of having a baby.

Specialist perinatal community mental health teams can also provide extra mental health support if needed.

There are also locality parent infant mental health teams who are specialist services focusing specifically on supporting the bond with parents and their babies.

To visit the web page search: https://hub.gmhsc.org.uk/mental-health/pregnancy-family-and-mental-health/