Women suffering post-natal depression and a range of other mental health problems before and after childbirth are being denied the help they need, with only one in 14 managing to see a specialist, a study has found.
Researchers also said that pregnant and breastfeeding women received conflicting advice over whether or not to take medication, with no particular consensus among doctors about whether pills may harm the baby.
The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) conducted the study of more than 2,300 women who had given birth in the past five years to evaluate the help they had received. Two thirds had experienced “low mood”, about half had felt anxiety and just over a third experienced depression. Just 7 per cent of the women