Perinatal Mental Health

Baroness Gohir Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I pay tribute to my noble friend for her work as the chair of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance. I share her great concerns about the rate of suicide among new mothers in particular. The NHS planning guidance is not an exhaustive list of everything the NHS does. I am sure my noble friend will remember that the Darzi review highlighted that one of the problems in the NHS was too many targets. We have reduced the number of national priorities by focusing on what matters most to patients but, as my noble friend acknowledged, maternity funding has not been cut. Indeed, healthcare systems leaders now have more autonomy to meet the demands of their local populations.

[Baroness Gohir (CB)]

My Lords, I declare an interest as CEO of Muslim Women’s Network UK. We conducted maternity research in 2022 and found that there is a lack of awareness in some minority ethnic communities that women can suffer from poor mental health during and after pregnancy, which results in the situation that, when women ask for help, they are not believed by their families and are accused of being a bad mother or even possessed by evil spirits. Will the Government look at doing some awareness raising of perinatal mental health in minority ethnic communities and make those services more accessible to those women?

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

The noble Baroness raises a very important point, particularly on voices not being heard. I am sure she heard the announcement on maternity safety made by the Secretary of State on Monday. He highlighted the issue of women’s voices and that women are so often not listened to. That is particularly the case among the minority ethnic groups the noble Baroness referred to. I assure her that that is taken into account. I am glad to say that there are record numbers of women accessing community perinatal mental health services. On the point raised, that is why it is for local areas to serve their local communities in the way she describes.