My Blog

Today I attended a training event put on by the Northwest Perinatal Mental Health network, held at Wythenshawe hospital.

On a personal note it was lovely to meet some familiar faces, especially Thelma Osborn who wrote the final chapter in my book. She tells me that Halton are putting their finishing touches to guidelines on perinatal mental health.

The first presentation was on ‘Physical Interventions for Depressed Parents and their infants’ by representatives of three teams of the Manchester Children and Parents Service (CAPS). Some of the services they offer are Parent Survival Course; Baby Survival Course; Preschool Psychologist Clinic; Baby Blues Buster; Cues and Clues and CPN Service. They explained in more detail their Baby Blues Busters and their Cues and Clues services which has some interesting aspects. Let me know if you would like more information!

Next we heard from Caroline Nuttall and Nic Seccombe who were from the Self Help Services, a user-led, mental health charity that is housed within Big Life Group – a collection of social businesses and charities. It is based at the Zion community centre in Manchester. They spoke about computer-based CBT which has been given approval by NICE, for example ‘Beat the Blues’ and ‘Fear fighter’.

‘Beat the Blues’ is an on-line 8 week hourly session support for those suffering from mild depression. Although the speakers could not state how many people they had helped use it suffered from postnatal depression it was thought to be a useful tool for some.

Other on-line support schemes they mentioned were www.livinglifetothefull.com by Dr. Chris Williams and www.moodgym.anu.edu.au .

If you would like more information on this please go to
http://www.selfhelpservices.org.uk/

Finally we heard from Dr. Angelika Wieck who is the Consultant perinatal Psychiatrist based at the Mother and baby Unit at Wythenshawe hospital. She spoke about anti-depressant use in the perinatal period. One amazing fact she shared was the potential harmful effects of one drug – coffee! So expectant mums keep it to a minimum! She went on to show that different drugs can affect different developing areas of the fetus at different times of the pregnancy. If you would like more information on this area please contact me.

I will be arranging to visit the mums in the unit in the autumn for a pamper session or two.

From there I went over to the railway station at Sowerby Bridge for a photo-shoot with Janet Jones for pictures for my new website and business cards – coming soon! I was really impressed with them!

Later on … see next posting …

Elaine

www.hanzak.com