There are an abundance of resources and additional information on Perinatal Depression available on the web. Here are a few resources that we found to be particularly interesting and helpful for clinicians.
The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has a page on their website devoted to resourcing physicians around depression during pregnancy and postpartum. This page includes some resources only available to members of ACOG such as information on lactation and psychiatric medications, and management of depression during pregnancy, but also many publically available resources such as a ICD-10 codes for postpartum depression, recommendations for optimizing postpartum care, and links to many other helpful external resources.
You can access this page on the ACOG website here.
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) has created a toolkit for family service providers containing psychoeducation materials, tips for working with mothers who may be depressed, screening tools, brochures, and handouts for mothers with depression.
You can download a PDF of this toolkit for free at the SAMHSA website here.
The Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Program (MCPAP) through the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health has created a toolkit for front-line perinatal care providers to assist with the prevention, identification and treatment of depression or other mental health concerns of pregnant and postpartum women. This toolkit is available as a PDF for free download, or can be accessed as individual components such as a depression screening algorithm for obstetric providers and an antidepressant treatment algorithm.
The entire toolkit or the individual components can be downloaded at the MCPAP website here.
The IWK Reproductive Mental Health Service and the Family Resource Centre in Halifax, Canada have created this comprehensive toolkit geared towards community mental health providers and has sections on mothers’ wellness and self-care, mental health, assessment and screening, interventions and treatments, ways to support mothers’ recovery and a section for larger community action.
You can download a free PDF of this toolkit from the IWK Health Center website here as well as accessing additional resources such as a powerpoint presentation, a group therapy guide, and worksheets, here.