An Integrated Approach to Peripartum Mental Health Care

Our Peripartum Clinic is the only program in greater Richmond that integrates psychiatric care, social work and obstetrics care for expectant patients and new moms with mental health needs. We provide women with the support and tools they need to cope with the physical and emotional challenges of pregnancy and motherhood.

Care in the Peripartum Clinic can begin in the early stages of pregnancy. All expectant patients fill out a questionnaire that can identify possible mental health needs. If the results of the screening reveal that a patient might require more support, a social worker coordinates mental health services tailored to the patient’s needs. In fact, patients can even receive mental health services on the same day as their OB appointment. 

By offering psychiatric care in the OB clinic, our patients have direct access to mental health services that can include:

• Sessions with a psychiatrist
• Bi-monthly postpartum support group open to all women in the community
• More frequent OB/mental health care visits
• Mood surveillance

Peripartum Clinic Awards and National Recognition

Our Peripartum Clinic began as a collaboration among a maternal-fetal medicine specialist, a psychiatrist, and a clinical social worker who saw a common thread of untreated mental health conditions among both expectant patients and postpartum moms. 

Today, we are a nationally recognized program, recently earning the 2019 Maternal Mental Health Innovation award for impactful clinical programs. We are one of only six practices nationally to receive this recognition.

This award will provide financial assistance to our Peripartum Clinic through a joint collaboration between 2020 Mom, a national organization that strives to close gaps in maternal mental health care through education, advocacy and collaboration, and the Marce Society of North America, an organization dedicated to supporting research and high-quality clinical care around perinatal mental health.

With the award, the clinic will invest in research that will further support women with mental health needs and create new teaching modules to train psychiatric residents, which will expand access to our care.

Peripartum Clinic Location and Hours

The Peripartum Clinic is located at the Adult Outpatient Pavilion, and is open on Tuesdays from 12:30 p.m. to 4:45 p.m.

Contact

For more information about the Peripartum Clinic, please contact:

Morgan Nutter
Morgan.Nutter1@vcuhealth.org