They can join the queue.
Perinatal mental health problems are very common, affecting up to 20% of women at some point during the perinatal period.
Perinatal mental health problems don't just affect mothers, they affect their children too.
Taken together, perinatal depression, anxiety and psychosis carry a total long-term cost to society of about £8.1 billion for each one-year cohort of births in the UK. This is equivalent to a cost of just under £10,000 for every single birth in the country.
Nearly three-quarters (72%) of this cost relates to adverse impacts on the child rather than the mother.
Worst still:
A broad set of illustrative estimates suggests that additional NHS expenditure of around £280 million a year would be needed in England to bring perinatal mental health care up to the level and standard recommended in national guidance. This is equivalent to extra spending of around £1.3 million a year in an average CCG. In comparison, aggregate spending on the NHS in England is around £105 billion a year, or around £500 million a year in a typical CCG.
Put another way, the estimated cost of extra provision is equivalent to about £400 per average birth. Our estimates suggest that, in comparison, perinatal mental health problems impose costs of around £10,000 per birth for society as a whole, with costs of around £2,100 per birth falling on the public sector.
This is a map of specialist maternity mental health services in the UK. The red areas are areas where there is no specialist provision. Only the dark green areas represent areas which met the MINIMUM level recommended. 80% of women in NI, 70% of women in NI and 40% of women in England and Scotland have NO specialist maternity mental health services in their area.
*source: everyonesbusiness.org.uk/?page_id=349
The number of births in the UK last year was 777,167 (about 11,000 of those are multiple births - mainly twins) So lets call that roughly 750,000 women who give birth. You work out what the demand and need for these services is...
And given its cost effect to provide the minimum standard of care, and its not being provided, then there is more than argument for it.
Oh and just throwing this out there because its relevant and I'm sick to death of suicide bingo.
Suicide is a leading cause of death during pregnancy and one year after birth
www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/new-mum-suicide_uk_58481bdee4b07fd553cef3d3
Suicide Is The Leading Direct Cause Of Death Among New Mums, Report Shows
Want to know how many this is?
The report focussed particularly on maternal mental health, and includes lessons learned from reviews of the care of more than 100 women who died by suicide during pregnancy or in the year after giving birth between 2009 and 2013.
This also doesn't necessarily cover all suicides. Only ones classed as directly related to birth.
This report states that:
A quarter of all maternal deaths between 6 weeks and a year were mental health related with 1 in 7 being classed as suicide.
As I say, join the queue.
Biological women can more than make the case for how they are being failed. No one talks about it though.
We should all go at get arrested outside the DoH obviously.