13.11.23
Make Mothers Matter launched a new video series on Maternal Mental Health, addressing mothers, their families and society in general. Our aim is to highlight the latest research surrounding maternal health in order to inform and support mothers and raise awareness on this important topic – because the mental health of the mother during the peripartum period is as important as her physical health.
Featuring Prof. Ana Ganho Ávila, a clinical psychologist and researcher at the University of Coimbra, Portugal, and Chair of the EU project RiseUpPPD, of which Make Mothers Matter is a partner, this first series tackles a number of issues:
Prof. Ganho Ávila stresses the critical need to start a dialogue around mothers, their families and communities at large and explains how mental health came to be so important to her.
In this episode, Prof. Ana Ganho Ávila talks about her specific research interest and endeavours relating to maternal mental health. Alarmed by a lack of resources for healthcare providers to detect and understand different clinical indicators for peripartum depression (PPD), she has been working on developing EU-wide guidelines for diagnosing and treating PPD in clinical practice within the research project Rise UpPPD. You can find the newly published guidelines here.
The key message of this episode is: You are not alone and there is help out there. In fact, an estimated 10–20% of new mothers and 4–10% of new fathers experience poor maternal mental health, highlighting its worrying impact on society.
NGOs like MMM work to support and empower mothers by influencing policies to bring about positive change. Prof. Ganho Ávila lays out actionable steps policymakers, specifically in the European context, need to take to better address maternal mental health as well as more general issues affecting mothers. The responsibility is on all of us to help push the policy agenda forward and demand change.
This episode offers advice on how all of us can, and have a responsibility to, better understand maternal mental health, the common challenges of being a new mom, and to create more supportive environments for talking about it. It takes a village to raise a child and we can be part of that by unconditionally supporting mothers, be that ourselves (in practicing self-care) or others.
Prof. Ganho Ávila addresses new mothers and fathers on what they should know, as they plan for a pregnancy and beyond.
Our thanks to Prof. Ganho for helping at breaking the silence and at building the village in maternal mental health.
11.10.23
UN Geneva, Human Rights Council - Entitled ‘Centrality of care and support from a human rights perspective’, this landmark resolution was presented by the governments of Argentina, Iceland, Mexico
02.07.24
UN New York / HLPF - Register now to join us online at this year’s High Level Political Forum side-event.
09.10.23
In June this year, the European Union (EU) Commission announced a new high-priority initiative to address the mental health of all Europeans.
18.09.24
EASPD, in collaboration with various family rights networks, including MMM, has issued a position paper on “Family-centred Early Childhood Intervention" (ECI) for children with disabilities. This approach pro
09.07.24
Mothers play an essential role in families by ensuring their loved ones are nourished, educated, and healthy, but their unpaid care work often leads to economic and social injustices, known as the motherhood pe
19.06.24
UN Geneva – A resolution aimed at strengthening the right to education in international legal instruments will be negotiated during the 56th session of the Human Rights Council, which began on 18 June. This r
13.05.24
MMM is working on the project “Mothers Can-Bringing mothers back to work”, a European partnership between six countries (Belgium, Cyprus, Germany, Romania, Spain and Greece). The project aims to support mot
07.05.24
Make Mothers Matter participated in the conference “Investing in an inclusive and fair future for Europe. European Child Guarantee: from engagement to reality", organised within the framework of the Belgian p
07.05.24
MMM welcomes the recent adoption of La Hulpe Declaration, under the Belgian presidency. This inter-institutional document aims at shaping the future social agenda of the European Union for the period 2024-2029.