Testified today in front of the Georgia House of Representatives Maternal Mortality Study Committee. Advocated for perinatal mood and anxiety disorder (PMADs) training for all current and aspiring healthcare providers who see new mothers – and for universal PMADs screening. The tools are in place – we just need the will.

Maternal functioning scores improved by 19 points in patients who participated in the Mother Baby Connections (MBC) program.  MBC is an intensive, outpatient perinatal mental health program housed at Drexel University.   Read more here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30284095.  

BIMF scores improve by almost 16 points (from 81.5 to 97.4) with participation in the Jewish Family and Children’s Service Visiting Moms® program.  Visiting Mom’s provides critical social support through home visits throughout the child’s first year of life. To read more:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31561726

https://news.mercer.edu/mercer-professors-tool-for-new-moms-could-help-disrupt-maternal-health-crisis/?fbclid=IwAR3_RxoK8mXb5eMYBzG7QvivqMvFC_vsktzRk3A6xI4HFd_AlcAvY0Dh-ek

MedTech Women @SEMDA Expert Panel: The Maternity Crisis: Disruption through Innovation and Policy photo credit: @f22studio

Check out this novel work regarding the role of clock genes in perinatal depression.. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/acps.13084

The Barkin Index of Maternal Functioning (BIMF) was recently modified and validated for mothers whose infants were admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU).  The study results revealed that not all admission diagnoses may be equal in terms of their impact on the mother’s functioning.  Read more here: https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/jwh.2018.7168.  For information on the BIMF-NICU,…

In the article, “Heterogeneity in psychiatric diagnostic classification,” researchers from the UK describe their thematic analysis of diagnostic categories in the DSM-5.  They found variation in diagnostic criteria across several categories for different disorders.  The disorders that were reviewed for heterogeneity were schizophrenia spectrum and other psychotic disorders, bipolar and related disorders, depressive disorders, anxiety disorders,…