Women: Postnatal Depression

Debate between Baroness Nye and Earl Howe

Thursday 5th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

The noble Lord makes some extremely pertinent points. The family nurse partnership programme that I mentioned is important in this context, and our aim is to expand that to 16,000 places by April 2015. We launched the NHS Start4Life information service for parents. Parenting classes are available through the CANparent network and we are developing a population measure to show child development at two to two and a half years for inclusion in the public health outcomes framework, so that we can measure the progress we are making.

[Baroness Nye (Lab)]

My Lords, would the Minister agree that midwives had a crucial role to play in identifying and helping women suffering from postnatal depression, so it is regrettable that the Prime Minister’s pledge at the last election that there would be 3,000 more midwives during this Parliament has not been met? The increased number of midwives in training is to be welcomed, but does he agree that valuable mental health care support for new mothers is being lost if some NHS trusts do not have the money to employ them when they finish training?

[Earl Howe]

It is positive that the number of midwives has increased by 2,000 since 2010, as I mentioned, and there is a record number in training, as the noble Baroness mentioned. But she is right about the role of the midwife before, during and after the birth. The visits that a new mother can expect from a midwife should contain a session where the right questions are asked of the mother about how she is feeling and how her baby is. The signs and symptoms of postnatal depression are ones that every midwife is trained to pick up.