Our community-based service supports mothers who are experiencing, or who have previously experienced, severe mental health difficulties during pregnancy or up to a year after birth.
We provide support to women and their families across East Sussex, West Sussex, Brighton & Hove and East Surrey. Our leaflet explains the service in more detail:
We have four teams of perinatal mental health professionals from a range of different disciplines. These include psychiatrists, mental health nurses, psychologists, parent-infant psychotherapists and nursery nurses.
They are all highly trained and specialise in perinatal adult and infant mental health.
We offer mums, their babies and families a safe and specialist meeting with one of our team to help them think about what they are going through and how being pregnant, or becoming a parent, has affected their wellbeing and that of their partner or wider family.
We provide our specialist service within:
Partners are welcome at all our clinic appointments.
Individuals cannot currently refer themselves to the service, but a referral can be made by any health professional. This includes midwives, health visitors, GPs, hospital-based teams, children’s centre and social workers, child and adolescent mental health services, adult mental health workers, assessment and treatment teams, crisis teams and all primary and secondary approved mental health professionals. If you are concerned about your own mental health, or that of a friend or family member, please talk to one of these professionals about making a referral.
GPs should refer through their patient booking system as they would for any other mental health referral.
All other healthcare professionals should complete one of the following referral forms and return it to spnt.perinatalreferrals@nhs.net:
Coastal West Sussex referral form
North West Sussex and East Surrey referral form
We are a community-based service. As well as providing our specialist service in family homes, we hold clinics in a range of locations including community venues, maternity hospitals, GP surgeries and family centres. We will talk to you about where you would like your appointments to take place and agree a venue together.
Click here to view an interactive map of where our clinics are located
During 9am-5pm, if there is immediate risk to a mother or her baby, please call your GP or go to A&E.
If you know, or are looking after a woman and her baby who you believe is in crisis and requires an urgent response out of hours, please call the Sussex Mental Healthline - 0800 0309 500.- for telephone support and information.
The Sussex Mental Healthline is a 24/7 telephone service offering listening support, advice, information and signposting to anyone experiencing difficulties with their mental health. The service is available to anyone concerned about their own mental health or that of a relative or friend, including carers and healthcare professionals. You do not need an appointment. It offers support to those who may be in crisis, distressed and in urgent need of help with their mental health
In East Surrey, the Mental Health Crisis Helpline is available Monday to Friday 5pm-9am, and 24 hours at weekends and Bank Holidays on 0300 456 8342. SMS texting for people who are deaf or hard of hearing is available on 07717 989 024.
We know that COVID-19 and the restrictions and isolation imposed by the lockdown can feel particularly difficult for women who are pregnant or who have recently had a baby. Particularly for those who had were struggling with their mental health anyway.
The Sussex and East Surrey Perinatal Mental Health Service remains fully staffed and operating as usual through this difficult period.
Do not assume that health professionals are 'too busy'. We are here and ready to help.
We have changed some of the ways in which we work. We are using a secure face to face digital platform called Attend Anywhere, which is similar to Zoom or Skype to see women for appointments. We are making more use of phone calls to check in with people. But we are still visiting women at home or offering 'in person' appointments where necessary. We continue to work closely with our maternity colleagues and are seeing women together with obstetricians and midwives in antenatal clinics and in hospital.
If you are struggling with your mental health during pregnancy, or in the first postnatal year, please talk to your GP, midwife or health visitor about what support they can offer and if a referral to our specialist perinatal mental health service might be helpful.
A message from the Sussex and East Surrey Perinatal Mental Health Service during COVID-19
There are a number of useful online resources that have been developed to help people who are feeling anxious or struggling with their mental health at this time. There are some that have been developed specially for women who are pregnant or who have recently had a baby.
Professionals who have any questions about our service, or who are not sure whether to refer a woman and her baby, or an expectant mother, can call one of our administrators, who will put them in touch with a specialist practitioner for an initial consultation:
SMS texting for people who are deaf or hard of hearing is available on:
Alternatively please email spnt.perinatalreferrals@nhs.net
You may find this short film useful. It explains more about conditions such as anxiety and depression which can develop anytime from conception through the first year of a baby's life (created by NHS London Clinical Networks).
For Trust prescribers and GPs: Our prescribing guidelines
View our Perinatal care pathway: click here.
The Survivors Trust: Pregnancy, birth and parenthood after childhood sexual abuse - https://www.thesurvivorstrust.org/pbpaftercsa
All 4 Maternity: Pregnancy, birth and parenthood after childhood sexual abuse - https://www.all4maternity.com/pregnancy-birth-and-parenthood-after-childhood-sexual-abuse/
Bonding with your baby: Becoming a parent - download
Perinatal Mental Health: Prescribing Guidance for Trust Prescribers and GPs - download.
Being Pregnant... Preparing to Give Birth - download
Being With Your Baby... Becoming a Mum - download
NHS England, Perinatal information leaflets - www.england.nhs.uk/mental-health/perinatal/#securing-transformation
Sussex and East Surrey IAPT information leaflet - download.
Perinatal mental health toolkit, Royal College of General Practitioners - www.rcgp.org.uk/clinical-and-research/resources/toolkits/perinatal-mental-health-toolkit.aspx
Planning a pregnancy when you have a severe mental health illness - https://www.tommys.org/pregnancy-information/planning-a-pregnancy/planning-a-pregnancy-and-mental-illness
Delivering preconception to women of childbearing age with serious mental illness - https://www.tommys.org/pregnancyhub/health-professionals/free-pregnancy-resources/guide-delivering-preconception-care
This guide has been developed in partnership with Tommy’s, Public Health England and Kings College London. It can be used to support those who are caring for women with a mental health condition who may be planning a pregnancy or may become pregnant in the future.
Below is a really useful film aimed at children aged 7 or 8 and struggling with a mum who has a mental health problem, Devon Partnership NHS Trust
Age appropirate stories and leaflets for children of parents admitted to mental health wards, South London and Maudsley NHS Trust - https://www.slam.nhs.uk/patients-and-carers/patient-information/information-for-children
“Mummy is poorly” by Zoe Robinson. A children’s story about a little girl whose mother has mental health difficulties. It is intended to help parents start up conversations with children and also to remind professionals of the need to engage with patients’ children, Cumbria, Northumberland Tyne & Wear NHS Trust - https://www.cntw.nhs.uk/content/uploads/2018/01/Mummy-is-poorly-Oct-2019.pdf
