Consultant Appointment

[Running4u]

i'm 16 + 4 today and have an appointment on the 14th to see a consultant at the maternity regarding my mental health. I'm under the perinatal mental health team but just wondered what will happen at the antenatal consultant appointment?

any thoughts or previous experience would be appreciated.

Thankyou xx

[Systema23]

hi Running4u

I don’t know where you live so don’t know how your maternity services approach it, but I have a mental health condition which I manage without medication. I was totally upfront about it from my booking appointment.

The maternity mental health consultant was just one of a number of people in a small team that supported me during my pregnancy. I was worried that I would have another episode.

At the appointment all that happened was she asked me how I was feeling, what measures I had in place to combat any issues that arose and to let me know that I would be supported throughout and that I could call anytime I felt I needed to talk.

Whilst some people told me I shouldn’t tell the maternity services upfront about my mental health concerns both during pregnancy and post birth, I took the view that it was better to be transparent and engage from the very start, and it turns out I had nothing to worry about anyway. All they did was support me, at what was a very stressful time for me.

And when my son was born prematurely, they even came to see him. I continue to engage with my health visitor and have a counsellor once a week to help me process what I have been through (my mother was an addict so childhood addiction issues, bullying and threatening behaviour in the workplace, then fleeing domestic abuse and losing my home and becoming homeless during my pregnancy and having to hide since then, together with family bereavement during pregnancy, then my son being born prematurely and him ending up on breathing support in neonatal ICU whilst I was in the high dependency unit with eclampsia and then I haemorrhaged a week after he was born)

From my experience there is nothing to be fearful of and I am using the counselling as an opportunity to deal with the issues I have so I can be the best parent I can be for my son.

Good luck x