Improve mental health support for women
The Issue
PETITION FOR NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL REFORM OF PERINATAL AND MATERNAL MENTAL HEALTH CARE
Break the Stigma. Protect Mothers. Reform Perinatal Mental Health Care.
Petition to the UK Government, devolved administrations, relevant health authorities, international governments, the World Health Organization (WHO), national medicines regulators and organisations responsible for clinical and prescribing guidance.
We, the undersigned, call upon governments, healthcare regulators, policymakers and international health organisations to undertake an urgent, independent and evidence-based review of how women's mental health is identified, assessed, treated and supported during pregnancy and throughout the perinatal and postnatal periods.
Perinatal mental illness is not a failure of motherhood. It is a serious health issue that can affect any woman, regardless of how wanted her pregnancy is, how much she loves her child, whether this is her first baby or her fifth, or how experienced she is as a mother.
Women experiencing perinatal depression, postnatal depression, anxiety, intrusive thoughts, birth trauma, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, bipolar disorder, postpartum psychosis and other pregnancy-related mental-health conditions deserve to be treated as patients requiring compassionate, evidence-based healthcare — not as bad mothers requiring judgement.
THE SCALE OF THE PROBLEM
The World Health Organization reports that almost 1 in 5 women experience a mental-health condition during pregnancy or in the year following childbirth, and states that around 20% of women with perinatal mental-health conditions experience suicidal thoughts or acts of self-harm. WHO also recognises maternal mental health as a major global public-health challenge.
The UK Government has stated that approximately 1 in 4 women experience mental-health problems such as depression or anxiety during pregnancy or within the two years following childbirth. The Government has also acknowledged that there has historically been insufficient preventative support for perinatal mental health and parent-infant relationships.
These figures represent real women, real families and, in some cases, preventable suffering and loss.
Yet prevalence statistics alone do not reveal how many women remain silent because they are frightened of what may happen if they disclose how they are actually feeling.
FEAR MUST NOT BECOME A BARRIER TO SEEKING HELP
We call for an urgent investigation into the extent to which mothers avoid, delay or minimise disclosure of mental-health symptoms because they fear:
- being judged as an unsafe or "bad" mother;
- having their parenting abilities questioned;
- automatic or disproportionate involvement from children's social-care services;
- intervention escalating before appropriate therapeutic support has been offered;
- their children being removed;
- being treated differently by healthcare professionals;
- having ordinary intrusive thoughts misunderstood as intent;
- being labelled rather than listened to; or
- being prescribed medication without sufficient assessment of the underlying circumstances.
A woman should never have to choose between telling the truth about her mental health and fearing that honesty will automatically be used against her as evidence of parental failure.
Safeguarding must, of course, remain paramount where there is genuine and immediate risk. However, safeguarding and compassionate healthcare must not be treated as opposing principles.
Women need a system in which asking for help is encouraged rather than feared.
MEDICATION MUST NOT BECOME THE END OF THE CONVERSATION
This petition does not oppose appropriate medication.
Medication can be clinically necessary, lifesaving and entirely appropriate for some women, including women experiencing severe depression or postpartum psychosis.
However, medication should not become a substitute for comprehensive assessment, psychological intervention, trauma-informed care, practical support, social support, continuity of care and investigation of the circumstances contributing to a woman's deterioration.
WHO itself recommends psychosocial and/or psychological interventions during the antenatal and postnatal periods to prevent postpartum depression and anxiety, and recommends psychological interventions for women with clinically significant symptoms or risk factors.
We therefore call for prescribing pathways to ensure that, where clinically appropriate, medication is accompanied by — rather than substituted for — meaningful assessment and support.
A prescription should never be the point at which the healthcare system stops listening.
WE DEMAND A REVIEW OF CLINICAL AND PRESCRIBING GUIDANCE
We call upon the UK Government, NHS bodies, professional regulators, NICE and relevant international health authorities to undertake an independent review of current perinatal mental-health pathways and prescribing guidance.
That review should examine:
1. Whether women are receiving adequate psychological and psychosocial support alongside medication.
2. Whether healthcare professionals receive sufficient training in perinatal depression, postpartum psychosis, bipolar disorder, intrusive thoughts, birth trauma and maternal mental health.
3. Whether women receive adequate continuity of care rather than repeatedly explaining their circumstances to different professionals.
4. Whether screening and assessment are sufficiently sensitive to women who conceal symptoms because of fear or stigma.
5. Whether existing safeguarding procedures unintentionally discourage women from seeking help.
6. Whether mothers are being appropriately distinguished between having distressing thoughts and having an intention to act upon them.
7. Whether prescribing decisions adequately consider pregnancy, breastfeeding, interactions, adverse effects and the woman's individual circumstances.
8. Whether women have timely access to evidence-based psychological therapies and specialist perinatal mental-health services.
9. Whether outcomes are being measured beyond prescription rates, including recovery, maternal wellbeing, functioning, mother-infant attachment and patient experience.
10. Whether women with previous mental-health difficulties receive appropriate proactive support before, during and after pregnancy.
INDEPENDENT REVIEW AND TRANSPARENCY
We further call for an independent review of maternal mental-health services to include meaningful participation from:
- women with lived experience;
- mothers and families;
- bereaved families;
- psychiatrists and psychologists;
- midwives;
- GPs;
- health visitors;
- obstetricians;
- pharmacists;
- social workers;
- safeguarding professionals;
- independent researchers; and
- relevant patient-advocacy organisations.
Lived experience must not be treated as anecdotal or secondary to policy decisions.
Women must have a meaningful voice in designing the services intended to protect them.
INTERNATIONAL & GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY
We call upon the World Health Organization and national health authorities internationally to continue strengthening evidence-based, stigma-free maternal mental-health care and to establish stronger international collaboration concerning:
- early identification;
- prevention;
- psychological and psychosocial intervention;
- safe prescribing;
- postpartum psychosis;
- suicide prevention;
- trauma-informed maternity care;
- maternal safeguarding;
- continuity of care;
- workforce training;
- data collection; and
- meaningful patient involvement.
WHO already recognises the importance of integrated, respectful and stigma-free perinatal mental-health services and has published guidance supporting the integration of mental-health care into maternal and child-health services.
The issue is therefore not whether maternal mental health deserves recognition.
It is whether existing systems are doing enough, consistently enough, and early enough.
REGULATORY ACCOUNTABILITY
We call upon national medicines regulators, including the United States Food and Drug Administration and its international counterparts, to maintain rigorous, transparent and continually updated evidence standards for treatments used during pregnancy and the postpartum period.
The FDA itself recognises postpartum depression as a serious condition and has approved specific treatments for it, demonstrating that treatment must continue to evolve alongside scientific evidence.
We therefore call for continued review of:
- treatment effectiveness;
- safety during pregnancy and breastfeeding;
- adverse effects;
- long-term maternal and infant outcomes;
- medication combinations;
- patient-reported outcomes;
- accessibility of non-pharmacological treatments; and
- whether prescribing frameworks adequately reflect the complexity of maternal mental health.
This is not an argument against medicine.
It is an argument for better medicine, better assessment, better support and genuinely person-centred care.
OUR DEMAND
We call upon the UK Government and relevant international authorities to establish a formal, independently overseen review of perinatal and maternal mental-health provision and to publish its findings and an action plan for reform.
That action plan should include measurable targets, transparent reporting, adequate funding, workforce training, improved access to psychological therapies, stronger continuity of care, better data collection and mechanisms through which women can safely report failures in care.
We further call for governments to ensure that seeking mental-health support is not treated as evidence of parental inadequacy in itself.
A mother asking for help is not a bad mother.
A mother admitting she is struggling is not failing her child.
A mother experiencing intrusive thoughts is not automatically a danger to her child.
A mother experiencing postpartum psychosis is experiencing a medical emergency and deserves urgent, specialist treatment.
A woman experiencing depression does not need shame.
She needs someone to listen.
THE PRINCIPLE BEHIND THIS PETITION
We believe that mothers should be able to walk into a GP surgery, maternity unit, health-visiting service or mental-health service and say:
«"I am struggling."»
—and know that the response will be:
«"We hear you. Let's get you the right help."»
Not:
«"What will social services think?"»
Not:
«"Here's a prescription; come back if it gets worse."»
And not:
«"You should be coping better."»
Healthcare should identify risk without creating unnecessary fear.
Safeguarding should protect children without silencing mothers.
Medication should be available when clinically appropriate without becoming a replacement for comprehensive care.
And mental-health services should treat women as whole human beings — not symptoms, prescriptions or statistics.
OUR CALL TO ACTION
We ask governments and international health authorities to listen to women, investigate the gaps, publish the evidence and implement meaningful reform.
We ask for accountability where systems fail.
We ask for compassion where women are struggling.
We ask for evidence-based treatment rather than one-size-fits-all pathways.
We ask for prevention rather than waiting for crisis.
We ask for support without judgement.
And above all, we ask for a healthcare system in which no woman is afraid to tell the truth about her mental health.
Mothers deserve better. Families deserve better. Healthcare must do better.
We call upon governments, regulators and international health organisations to act.
Break the stigma. End the silence. Listen to women. Reform maternal mental-health care.
Because supporting a mother is supporting a family — and protecting maternal mental health is a public-health responsibility.
As someone who has personally battled mental health issues, I know firsthand how crucial it is to have access to adequate mental health support. Women around the world, from all walks of life, continue to face unique mental health challenges that often go unaddressed due to lack of resources, stigma, and insufficient policies.
29
The Issue
PETITION FOR NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL REFORM OF PERINATAL AND MATERNAL MENTAL HEALTH CARE
Break the Stigma. Protect Mothers. Reform Perinatal Mental Health Care.
Petition to the UK Government, devolved administrations, relevant health authorities, international governments, the World Health Organization (WHO), national medicines regulators and organisations responsible for clinical and prescribing guidance.
We, the undersigned, call upon governments, healthcare regulators, policymakers and international health organisations to undertake an urgent, independent and evidence-based review of how women's mental health is identified, assessed, treated and supported during pregnancy and throughout the perinatal and postnatal periods.
Perinatal mental illness is not a failure of motherhood. It is a serious health issue that can affect any woman, regardless of how wanted her pregnancy is, how much she loves her child, whether this is her first baby or her fifth, or how experienced she is as a mother.
Women experiencing perinatal depression, postnatal depression, anxiety, intrusive thoughts, birth trauma, obsessive-compulsive symptoms, bipolar disorder, postpartum psychosis and other pregnancy-related mental-health conditions deserve to be treated as patients requiring compassionate, evidence-based healthcare — not as bad mothers requiring judgement.
THE SCALE OF THE PROBLEM
The World Health Organization reports that almost 1 in 5 women experience a mental-health condition during pregnancy or in the year following childbirth, and states that around 20% of women with perinatal mental-health conditions experience suicidal thoughts or acts of self-harm. WHO also recognises maternal mental health as a major global public-health challenge.
The UK Government has stated that approximately 1 in 4 women experience mental-health problems such as depression or anxiety during pregnancy or within the two years following childbirth. The Government has also acknowledged that there has historically been insufficient preventative support for perinatal mental health and parent-infant relationships.
These figures represent real women, real families and, in some cases, preventable suffering and loss.
Yet prevalence statistics alone do not reveal how many women remain silent because they are frightened of what may happen if they disclose how they are actually feeling.
FEAR MUST NOT BECOME A BARRIER TO SEEKING HELP
We call for an urgent investigation into the extent to which mothers avoid, delay or minimise disclosure of mental-health symptoms because they fear:
- being judged as an unsafe or "bad" mother;
- having their parenting abilities questioned;
- automatic or disproportionate involvement from children's social-care services;
- intervention escalating before appropriate therapeutic support has been offered;
- their children being removed;
- being treated differently by healthcare professionals;
- having ordinary intrusive thoughts misunderstood as intent;
- being labelled rather than listened to; or
- being prescribed medication without sufficient assessment of the underlying circumstances.
A woman should never have to choose between telling the truth about her mental health and fearing that honesty will automatically be used against her as evidence of parental failure.
Safeguarding must, of course, remain paramount where there is genuine and immediate risk. However, safeguarding and compassionate healthcare must not be treated as opposing principles.
Women need a system in which asking for help is encouraged rather than feared.
MEDICATION MUST NOT BECOME THE END OF THE CONVERSATION
This petition does not oppose appropriate medication.
Medication can be clinically necessary, lifesaving and entirely appropriate for some women, including women experiencing severe depression or postpartum psychosis.
However, medication should not become a substitute for comprehensive assessment, psychological intervention, trauma-informed care, practical support, social support, continuity of care and investigation of the circumstances contributing to a woman's deterioration.
WHO itself recommends psychosocial and/or psychological interventions during the antenatal and postnatal periods to prevent postpartum depression and anxiety, and recommends psychological interventions for women with clinically significant symptoms or risk factors.
We therefore call for prescribing pathways to ensure that, where clinically appropriate, medication is accompanied by — rather than substituted for — meaningful assessment and support.
A prescription should never be the point at which the healthcare system stops listening.
WE DEMAND A REVIEW OF CLINICAL AND PRESCRIBING GUIDANCE
We call upon the UK Government, NHS bodies, professional regulators, NICE and relevant international health authorities to undertake an independent review of current perinatal mental-health pathways and prescribing guidance.
That review should examine:
1. Whether women are receiving adequate psychological and psychosocial support alongside medication.
2. Whether healthcare professionals receive sufficient training in perinatal depression, postpartum psychosis, bipolar disorder, intrusive thoughts, birth trauma and maternal mental health.
3. Whether women receive adequate continuity of care rather than repeatedly explaining their circumstances to different professionals.
4. Whether screening and assessment are sufficiently sensitive to women who conceal symptoms because of fear or stigma.
5. Whether existing safeguarding procedures unintentionally discourage women from seeking help.
6. Whether mothers are being appropriately distinguished between having distressing thoughts and having an intention to act upon them.
7. Whether prescribing decisions adequately consider pregnancy, breastfeeding, interactions, adverse effects and the woman's individual circumstances.
8. Whether women have timely access to evidence-based psychological therapies and specialist perinatal mental-health services.
9. Whether outcomes are being measured beyond prescription rates, including recovery, maternal wellbeing, functioning, mother-infant attachment and patient experience.
10. Whether women with previous mental-health difficulties receive appropriate proactive support before, during and after pregnancy.
INDEPENDENT REVIEW AND TRANSPARENCY
We further call for an independent review of maternal mental-health services to include meaningful participation from:
- women with lived experience;
- mothers and families;
- bereaved families;
- psychiatrists and psychologists;
- midwives;
- GPs;
- health visitors;
- obstetricians;
- pharmacists;
- social workers;
- safeguarding professionals;
- independent researchers; and
- relevant patient-advocacy organisations.
Lived experience must not be treated as anecdotal or secondary to policy decisions.
Women must have a meaningful voice in designing the services intended to protect them.
INTERNATIONAL & GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY
We call upon the World Health Organization and national health authorities internationally to continue strengthening evidence-based, stigma-free maternal mental-health care and to establish stronger international collaboration concerning:
- early identification;
- prevention;
- psychological and psychosocial intervention;
- safe prescribing;
- postpartum psychosis;
- suicide prevention;
- trauma-informed maternity care;
- maternal safeguarding;
- continuity of care;
- workforce training;
- data collection; and
- meaningful patient involvement.
WHO already recognises the importance of integrated, respectful and stigma-free perinatal mental-health services and has published guidance supporting the integration of mental-health care into maternal and child-health services.
The issue is therefore not whether maternal mental health deserves recognition.
It is whether existing systems are doing enough, consistently enough, and early enough.
REGULATORY ACCOUNTABILITY
We call upon national medicines regulators, including the United States Food and Drug Administration and its international counterparts, to maintain rigorous, transparent and continually updated evidence standards for treatments used during pregnancy and the postpartum period.
The FDA itself recognises postpartum depression as a serious condition and has approved specific treatments for it, demonstrating that treatment must continue to evolve alongside scientific evidence.
We therefore call for continued review of:
- treatment effectiveness;
- safety during pregnancy and breastfeeding;
- adverse effects;
- long-term maternal and infant outcomes;
- medication combinations;
- patient-reported outcomes;
- accessibility of non-pharmacological treatments; and
- whether prescribing frameworks adequately reflect the complexity of maternal mental health.
This is not an argument against medicine.
It is an argument for better medicine, better assessment, better support and genuinely person-centred care.
OUR DEMAND
We call upon the UK Government and relevant international authorities to establish a formal, independently overseen review of perinatal and maternal mental-health provision and to publish its findings and an action plan for reform.
That action plan should include measurable targets, transparent reporting, adequate funding, workforce training, improved access to psychological therapies, stronger continuity of care, better data collection and mechanisms through which women can safely report failures in care.
We further call for governments to ensure that seeking mental-health support is not treated as evidence of parental inadequacy in itself.
A mother asking for help is not a bad mother.
A mother admitting she is struggling is not failing her child.
A mother experiencing intrusive thoughts is not automatically a danger to her child.
A mother experiencing postpartum psychosis is experiencing a medical emergency and deserves urgent, specialist treatment.
A woman experiencing depression does not need shame.
She needs someone to listen.
THE PRINCIPLE BEHIND THIS PETITION
We believe that mothers should be able to walk into a GP surgery, maternity unit, health-visiting service or mental-health service and say:
«"I am struggling."»
—and know that the response will be:
«"We hear you. Let's get you the right help."»
Not:
«"What will social services think?"»
Not:
«"Here's a prescription; come back if it gets worse."»
And not:
«"You should be coping better."»
Healthcare should identify risk without creating unnecessary fear.
Safeguarding should protect children without silencing mothers.
Medication should be available when clinically appropriate without becoming a replacement for comprehensive care.
And mental-health services should treat women as whole human beings — not symptoms, prescriptions or statistics.
OUR CALL TO ACTION
We ask governments and international health authorities to listen to women, investigate the gaps, publish the evidence and implement meaningful reform.
We ask for accountability where systems fail.
We ask for compassion where women are struggling.
We ask for evidence-based treatment rather than one-size-fits-all pathways.
We ask for prevention rather than waiting for crisis.
We ask for support without judgement.
And above all, we ask for a healthcare system in which no woman is afraid to tell the truth about her mental health.
Mothers deserve better. Families deserve better. Healthcare must do better.
We call upon governments, regulators and international health organisations to act.
Break the stigma. End the silence. Listen to women. Reform maternal mental-health care.
Because supporting a mother is supporting a family — and protecting maternal mental health is a public-health responsibility.
As someone who has personally battled mental health issues, I know firsthand how crucial it is to have access to adequate mental health support. Women around the world, from all walks of life, continue to face unique mental health challenges that often go unaddressed due to lack of resources, stigma, and insufficient policies.
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Petition created on 18 August 2026