For Savanna: Demand Better Maternal Mental Health Care, Resources & Funding
The Issue
This is a deeply personal and urgent plea.
On November 12, 2024, I lost my beloved younger sister, Savanna Andrews (Hewitt), after a devastating postpartum mental health crisis that included depression, severe psychosis, and suicidal ideation over the course of a year.
But Savanna was so much more than what happened to her and how she left us.
Savanna was an artist. Not only in what she created, but in the way she saw the world. She saw beauty in things most people overlooked. She was full of life, and she LOVED life. Her laugh was so contagious it is impossible to forget, and her smile lit up the rooms she walked into. She was a loving wife, a happy mother, daughter, sister, and friend.
She was and will always be loved beyond measure. She had so much more life left to live.
She did not deserve to struggle for as long as she did and she should not have had to.
Savanna fought for over a year to try and get better, while at the same time, trying to focus on being a new mom to her young son. Repeatedly seeking help by using the little resources available to her. Including taking and switching different medications that couldn’t help her. At one point, she did exactly what people experiencing a mental health crisis are told to do: she sought help at a hospital voluntarily.
After only two days, she was discharged.
She was still sick, struggling and still needed more help.
The day before her passing, my sister again tried to reach out for help by contacting her Doctors.
Her situation and passing left our family shattered with no closure and with questions no family should have to ask:
How can anyone repeatedly ask for help and still be left without the level and continuity of care they desperately need? How did it get to that point?
Whether the barriers are caused by insurance, shortages of psychiatric clinicians authorized to prescribe the antipsychotics needed, bed shortages, blind spots in inpatient admission or discharge criteria, lengthy gaps between inpatient and outpatient treatment, or an overwhelmed behavioral-health system, the consequences can be devastating.
Having insurance (including Apple Health/Medicaid state benefits) should mean having meaningful access to appropriate psychiatric treatment across the board, not simply coverage on paper.
The Even Bigger Issue:
Postpartum depression is very common, affecting around 1 in 7 women after childbirth according to widely cited maternal mental-health estimates.
They say postpartum psychosis may be less common but nevertheless it is a psychiatric emergency that requires immediate intervention/treatment. It can involve delusions, hallucinations, severe confusion, mania, paranoia, behavioral changes, and impaired judgment. All things health clinicians should be able to identify quickly while caring for a patient.
A history of bipolar disorder, a family history of mental health issues, or previous postpartum episodes majorly increases risks.
Most importantly, severe psychosis and mania can impair a person’s insight and judgment. Someone in the middle of an episode may not even recognize that they are sick or even the danger they are actively in.
Our mental health system needs to be designed with that reality in mind.
Patient rights are necessary and essential protections. BUT Washington must also examine the facts, which means evaluating the current mental health crisis, the laws surrounding it, and if its involuntary-treatment system adequately protects people, or if it’s actually doing the exact opposite; interfering with the ability to get patients the real help they need even when they can’t or wont voice it themselves.
Is it not alarming that families have to WAIT for an emergency and/or tragedy to happen before meaningful intervention is finally possible?
What I am asking Washington to Do
In Savanna’s and every woman/mothers honor, I am asking Washington State leaders and lawmakers to:
- Increase funding for comprehensive perinatal and maternal psychiatric care, including appropriate inpatient, and outpatient treatment.
Improve timely access to psychiatrists and psychiatric evaluations for women experiencing any suspected mental health crisis vs the months long waiting period for patient referrals. - Ensure quality care and access to proper treatment regardless of what insurance a mother has or her ability to pay out of pocket.
- Improve procedures and follow-up care after behavioral hospitalizations, so mothers are not discharged without a realistic plan for continued treatment and support.
- Improve screenings questions for pregnant and postpartum patients who have known risk factors in their medical history.
- Required continued education courses for clinicians about the warning signs of PPD, what mania looks like, psychosis, emergencies, and recognizing when a patient may be in denial of their symptoms.
- Review and audit Washington’s psychiatric crisis and involuntary-treatment systems to determine whether people experiencing severe mental illness or impaired insight can receive timely intervention while still preserving appropriate patient rights.
This is not about taking dignity and freedom away from people living with these struggles. It is about recognizing that during a severe psychiatric episode, person’s ability to understand what is happening to them and make good choices for themselves are usually impaired during those times. Our healthcare system has to be able to respond before it is too late.
Savanna deserved that chance.
She deserved timely, personable, one on one, compassionate treatment. She deserved better continued care and frequent check ins. She deserved the opportunity to fully recover, create more art, laugh that laugh, raise her son with her husband, and live the life she loved with them.
That is why her story, voice and legacy drives this petition.
I know my sister wouldnt want another mother or family to go through any of this.
So to every mother whos ever struggled or currently struggling:
You are not alone.
We stand with you.
You are worth fighting for.
Please sign and share this petition. Help me advocate for the mothers so they get a better chance at good treatment, recovery, coming home, and watching their children grow.
Sources & Further Reading
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)
Clinical Practice Guideline: Treatment and Management of Mental Health Conditions During Pregnancy and Postpartum
https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/clinical-practice-guideline/articles/2023/06/treatment-and-management-of-mental-health-conditions-during-pregnancy-and-postpartum
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)
Screening and Diagnosis of Mental Health Conditions During Pregnancy and Postpartum
https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/clinical-practice-guideline/articles/2023/06/screening-and-diagnosis-of-mental-health-conditions-during-pregnancy-and-postpartum
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Perinatal Depression
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/perinatal-depression
Washington State Health Care Authority (HCA)
Behavioral Health and Recovery
https://www.hca.wa.gov/about-hca/programs-and-initiatives/behavioral-health-and-recovery
Washington State Department of Health
Maternal Mortality Review Panel
https://doh.wa.gov/data-and-statistical-reports/health-statistics/maternal-mortality-review-panel
Washington State Legislature
Chapter 71.05 RCW — Behavioral Health Disorders / Involuntary Treatment Act
https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=71.05
833
The Issue
This is a deeply personal and urgent plea.
On November 12, 2024, I lost my beloved younger sister, Savanna Andrews (Hewitt), after a devastating postpartum mental health crisis that included depression, severe psychosis, and suicidal ideation over the course of a year.
But Savanna was so much more than what happened to her and how she left us.
Savanna was an artist. Not only in what she created, but in the way she saw the world. She saw beauty in things most people overlooked. She was full of life, and she LOVED life. Her laugh was so contagious it is impossible to forget, and her smile lit up the rooms she walked into. She was a loving wife, a happy mother, daughter, sister, and friend.
She was and will always be loved beyond measure. She had so much more life left to live.
She did not deserve to struggle for as long as she did and she should not have had to.
Savanna fought for over a year to try and get better, while at the same time, trying to focus on being a new mom to her young son. Repeatedly seeking help by using the little resources available to her. Including taking and switching different medications that couldn’t help her. At one point, she did exactly what people experiencing a mental health crisis are told to do: she sought help at a hospital voluntarily.
After only two days, she was discharged.
She was still sick, struggling and still needed more help.
The day before her passing, my sister again tried to reach out for help by contacting her Doctors.
Her situation and passing left our family shattered with no closure and with questions no family should have to ask:
How can anyone repeatedly ask for help and still be left without the level and continuity of care they desperately need? How did it get to that point?
Whether the barriers are caused by insurance, shortages of psychiatric clinicians authorized to prescribe the antipsychotics needed, bed shortages, blind spots in inpatient admission or discharge criteria, lengthy gaps between inpatient and outpatient treatment, or an overwhelmed behavioral-health system, the consequences can be devastating.
Having insurance (including Apple Health/Medicaid state benefits) should mean having meaningful access to appropriate psychiatric treatment across the board, not simply coverage on paper.
The Even Bigger Issue:
Postpartum depression is very common, affecting around 1 in 7 women after childbirth according to widely cited maternal mental-health estimates.
They say postpartum psychosis may be less common but nevertheless it is a psychiatric emergency that requires immediate intervention/treatment. It can involve delusions, hallucinations, severe confusion, mania, paranoia, behavioral changes, and impaired judgment. All things health clinicians should be able to identify quickly while caring for a patient.
A history of bipolar disorder, a family history of mental health issues, or previous postpartum episodes majorly increases risks.
Most importantly, severe psychosis and mania can impair a person’s insight and judgment. Someone in the middle of an episode may not even recognize that they are sick or even the danger they are actively in.
Our mental health system needs to be designed with that reality in mind.
Patient rights are necessary and essential protections. BUT Washington must also examine the facts, which means evaluating the current mental health crisis, the laws surrounding it, and if its involuntary-treatment system adequately protects people, or if it’s actually doing the exact opposite; interfering with the ability to get patients the real help they need even when they can’t or wont voice it themselves.
Is it not alarming that families have to WAIT for an emergency and/or tragedy to happen before meaningful intervention is finally possible?
What I am asking Washington to Do
In Savanna’s and every woman/mothers honor, I am asking Washington State leaders and lawmakers to:
- Increase funding for comprehensive perinatal and maternal psychiatric care, including appropriate inpatient, and outpatient treatment.
Improve timely access to psychiatrists and psychiatric evaluations for women experiencing any suspected mental health crisis vs the months long waiting period for patient referrals. - Ensure quality care and access to proper treatment regardless of what insurance a mother has or her ability to pay out of pocket.
- Improve procedures and follow-up care after behavioral hospitalizations, so mothers are not discharged without a realistic plan for continued treatment and support.
- Improve screenings questions for pregnant and postpartum patients who have known risk factors in their medical history.
- Required continued education courses for clinicians about the warning signs of PPD, what mania looks like, psychosis, emergencies, and recognizing when a patient may be in denial of their symptoms.
- Review and audit Washington’s psychiatric crisis and involuntary-treatment systems to determine whether people experiencing severe mental illness or impaired insight can receive timely intervention while still preserving appropriate patient rights.
This is not about taking dignity and freedom away from people living with these struggles. It is about recognizing that during a severe psychiatric episode, person’s ability to understand what is happening to them and make good choices for themselves are usually impaired during those times. Our healthcare system has to be able to respond before it is too late.
Savanna deserved that chance.
She deserved timely, personable, one on one, compassionate treatment. She deserved better continued care and frequent check ins. She deserved the opportunity to fully recover, create more art, laugh that laugh, raise her son with her husband, and live the life she loved with them.
That is why her story, voice and legacy drives this petition.
I know my sister wouldnt want another mother or family to go through any of this.
So to every mother whos ever struggled or currently struggling:
You are not alone.
We stand with you.
You are worth fighting for.
Please sign and share this petition. Help me advocate for the mothers so they get a better chance at good treatment, recovery, coming home, and watching their children grow.
Sources & Further Reading
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)
Clinical Practice Guideline: Treatment and Management of Mental Health Conditions During Pregnancy and Postpartum
https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/clinical-practice-guideline/articles/2023/06/treatment-and-management-of-mental-health-conditions-during-pregnancy-and-postpartum
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG)
Screening and Diagnosis of Mental Health Conditions During Pregnancy and Postpartum
https://www.acog.org/clinical/clinical-guidance/clinical-practice-guideline/articles/2023/06/screening-and-diagnosis-of-mental-health-conditions-during-pregnancy-and-postpartum
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Perinatal Depression
https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/perinatal-depression
Washington State Health Care Authority (HCA)
Behavioral Health and Recovery
https://www.hca.wa.gov/about-hca/programs-and-initiatives/behavioral-health-and-recovery
Washington State Department of Health
Maternal Mortality Review Panel
https://doh.wa.gov/data-and-statistical-reports/health-statistics/maternal-mortality-review-panel
Washington State Legislature
Chapter 71.05 RCW — Behavioral Health Disorders / Involuntary Treatment Act
https://app.leg.wa.gov/RCW/default.aspx?cite=71.05
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Petition created on December 23, 2024