Perinatal Mental Health

Part of 2. Questions to the Minister for Mental Health, Wellbeing and Welsh Language – in the Senedd at 2:38 pm on 20 January 2021.

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Photo of Bethan Sayed Bethan Sayed Plaid Cymru 2:38, 20 January 2021

(Translated)

My office held a survey throughout the autumn and winter of last year. We got 1,000 responses to one, and 300 to another most recently, asking parents about their experience of perinatal services. We've had many responses, telling us that 80 per cent of them feel anxious about the restrictions that still exist in maternity services, 68 per cent feel that they didn't receive support, despite experiencing mental health problems, and 90 per cent saying that their partner had no opportunity to discuss their mental health—fathers perhaps being forgotten in all of this, very often. 

What can you do to do more in this sphere to ensure that things can operate better? Would you agree to meet with me, along with some of the charities active in this area, to discuss our survey? A number of details have emerged in the survey that could help you as a Government to steer this, and to help mothers and fathers to move forward in a period, as Lynne Neagle and Laura Anne Jones said, that is very difficult even at the best of times, never mind giving birth during a pandemic?