The Massachusetts Maternal and Infant Mental Health Project was developed to promote maternal well-being and infant development by addressing perinatal depression. The identified needs in Massachusetts included:
- the lack of support services for underserved and vulnerable populations
- the need to decrease stigma associated with perinatal depression
- the need to improve screening to address under-reported cases
- the need to increase dyadic services to reinforce the maternal-infant relationship
- the lack of data and surveillance regarding perinatal depression and infant development in Massachusetts.
Thus, the purpose of the Massachusetts Maternal & Infant Mental Health Project was to develop an innovative, community-based best practice model of care to improve mental health services for pregnant and parenting women and their infants up to one year of age with a focus on the mother-infant dyad. The Project has focused on vulnerable populations served by the Early Intervention Partnership Program (EIPP) and Early Intervention (EI) Programs. These populations included families living at or below 100% of poverty, minorities, and those at risk for poor maternal and birth outcomes including infants at risk for social and emotional delays.
The Massachusetts Maternal and Infant Mental Health Project implemented interventions on three levels: individual, social and organizational. On the individual level, the Project developed interventions focused on identifying and providing mother-infant dyad services for women and infants experiencing, or at risk for mental health issues. Individual and support group services provided an opportunity to address not only emotional health but social isolation, lack of support services, uncertainty around parenting, and self esteem. These services also helped to address the reported four month waiting lists for underserved populations trying to access clinical therapy.
On the social level, the Project worked to increase community and social support for pregnant and parenting women and their infants. The Project mobilized a public awareness campaign focused on decreasing stigma associated with perinatal depression. The project also conducted regional trainings, geared at enhancing provider’s skills and increasing the capacity to prevent, identify, assess and treat women experiencing or at risk for perinatal depression and their infants.
Finally, on the organizational level, the Project worked to enhance the capacity of community and state partners to support positive mental health for care givers and their infants. The Project worked regional experts to develop a white paper on perinatal depression. The Project was approached by state policymakers to assist in the development of postpartum legislation and the white paper would serve as the foundation for this proposal.
