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To: Northern Ireland Executive

Better Perinatal Mental Healthcare for Women in Northern Ireland

We ask that the Executive addresses the serious lack of provisions for perinatal mental healthcare in Northern Ireland by dedicating funds to improve services, provide specialist perinatal community teams and open a specialist Mother & Baby Unit.

Why is this important?

- Research released last year revealed a staggering 80% of areas in Northern Ireland have no specialist perinatal mental health services and there is no specialist inpatient mother and baby unit in the whole of Ireland.

- In addition to the devastating consequences to the woman, untreated illness can have adverse effects on child development and long-term outcomes.

- There is also a heavy economic cost of perinatal mental illness to our society and public services. Research released last year shows that the long-term costs to society of perinatal mental illness are more than £8bn for each annual cohort of births in the UK.

- Nearly three-quarters of this cost results from the adverse impacts of perinatal mental illness on the child.

- The extensive scientific evidence, as well as guidance from Nice and Sign show that this will need to include a new inpatient mother and baby unit and specialist perinatal community teams.

How it will be delivered

Deliver to NI Health Minister

Northern Ireland

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2017-08-24 22:25:31 +0100

500 signatures reached

2016-05-06 23:25:01 +0100

Day 3 and our campaign almost has 200 signatures! Keep sharing!

Also, lots of local news and media have been contacted. I'm hoping to get some attention so more people are aware of what we're trying to do .

2016-05-04 15:29:24 +0100

100 signatures reached

2016-05-04 08:51:17 +0100

50 signatures reached

2016-05-04 06:47:58 +0100

25 signatures reached

2016-05-03 22:54:44 +0100

10 signatures reached