Maternal Mental Health in Oxfordshire

This is a report by Healthwatch Oxfordshire. The piece looks at survey results on maternal mental health.

This brief report summarises the findings from Healthwatch England’s survey about the experiences of respondents who commented on care in Oxfordshire. Healthwatch England provided Healthwatch Oxfordshire with the anonymous responses of 45 women who live in Oxfordshire and took part in the national survey. Healthwatch Oxfordshire have analysed Healthwatch England’s data and present a summary of the findings here to highlight the voices and experience of the 45 women in Oxfordshire who took part in the national survey.

The findings of the survey results can be summarised as:

• Some women in Oxfordshire who experienced mental health difficulties during pregnancy or after giving birth found it difficult to access support. Challenges included not being offered support or information about mental health support by healthcare professionals and long waits for referrals to specialist services.
• Women had mixed experiences of support for their mental health from health visitors, midwives and GPs. Some women were happy with the support they had received, while others spoke about problems including feeling their mental health difficulties were ignored, finding it hard to talk to healthcare professionals about their mental health, and limited support due to COVID-19 restrictions.
• 38% (17) of the women felt their experience of care and support during and after labour and childbirth had negatively affected their mental health. The problems they experienced included COVID-19 restrictions on partners visiting, a lack of support after giving birth, and a lack of empathy from healthcare professionals.
• Most women (82%, 37) had had a postnatal consultation with their GP, but 15 said they had not spent enough time talking about their mental health in the consultation, and 10 said that it had not been mentioned at all. Women spoke about problems including a lack of empathy in this consultation and being given unhelpful advice.
• A recurring theme, mentioned by seven women, was that they had had to advocate for themselves to receive the care and support they needed.

There are no recommendations in this report.

There are no follow up actions in this report. However it will be shared with relevant local commissioners and groups.