Mental Health Care for Pregnant Patients 

You are pregnant, and that’s wonderful. Yet pregnancy can be an emotionally challenging time. It can also bring health surprises for you or your growing baby that are hard to cope with. That’s why our Stanford Medicine Children’s Health Obstetrics and Maternal-Fetal Medicine teams, including our Fetal and Pregnancy Health Program, have a dedicated mental health therapist, a social worker, and a psychiatrist to help with your mental well-being during and after pregnancy.

We start with a health screen for all of our pregnant patients. This helps us understand if you need mental health support, and then we determine what mental health care options would be appropriate and available for you. These can include:

If you are a Stanford Medicine Children’s Health patient and our screening shows signs that you are experiencing perinatal mood disorders, such as anxiety, depression, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), or obsessive-compulsive behavior (OD), we can help. Our Stanford Children’s mental health therapist provides supportive therapy to assist you with coping and balancing your emotions. This care includes:

  • Individual and couple therapy offered in person or via telehealth.
  • Appointments that are coordinated with your prenatal appointments for convenience.

If your unborn baby receives a challenging diagnosis (e.g., a diagnosis from a Stanford Children’s genetic counselor, fetal cardiologist, obstetrician, or fetal specialist, you will be assessed for your level of distress. If you are experiencing many mental health symptoms, you and your partner will be referred to our Stanford Medicine Children’s Health research-informed Couples Coping Intervention. Care includes:

  • Five sessions of either individual or couples therapy.
  • Guidance to help you and your partner cope with the trauma of the diagnosis; decrease your anxiety; and work through feelings of grief, loss, and blame.
  • Help for you to unite and communicate effectively as a couple.
  • Support to prepare you for your baby’s upcoming NICU stay.

If you have a preexisting mental health diagnosis and are experiencing significant struggles, our Stanford Medicine Children’s Health psychiatrist may see you virtually or in person to discuss your concerns and identify how they can help improve your psychological and emotional wellness. This type of care may include:

  • Individual psychotherapy.
  • Extra support when you are experiencing a medically complicated pregnancy or fetal diagnosis.
  • A prescription for or guidance about the use of medication, or discussions on concerns around your medication during pregnancy and breastfeeding.
  • Care after delivery for up to six weeks.
  • Help connecting you with a psychiatrist in your community after discharge, if you don’t already have one.

If you or your developing baby is diagnosed with a medical condition during your pregnancy, you may be offered help from a Stanford Children’s social worker who can provide you and your family with psychosocial support, education, and resources. If your baby requires a NICU stay, your social worker may connect you with a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) parent mentor who has had a similar experience—in collaboration with Stanford Children’s Health’s Family-Centered Care. Your social worker can follow you throughout your care journey and can help coordinate care with psychologists or psychiatrists when needed. This type of support can be offered in addition to our other mental health services.

This Stanford Medicine Children’s Health peer support group is offered to our obstetrics and maternal-fetal medicine patients who struggle emotionally and psychologically after pregnancy. In this group, you receive support from other new mothers on your postpartum experience. You can share feelings and wisdom, create emotional bonds, and together find ways to move forward through challenges, such as postpartum depression or anxiety. The group is formatted around select readings, helping to facilitate sharing and healing through coping strategies, self-care, and stress management techniques. This postpartum experience group offers:

  • Facilitation by one of our mental health providers.
  • Six sessions, meeting virtually once a week.

If you experience the loss of a child before or after birth, the Stanford Children’s Family Guidance and Bereavement Program offers support to you and your family during this difficult time. Services include individual, family, and group counseling for you and your partner/family. Care also includes referrals for community support, resources, education, and follow-up outreach. Services are offered at no cost in English and Spanish.

Besides our Stanford Children’s services, we tap into resources throughout Stanford Medicine to ensure that we can support your mental health needs. These mental health services include:

Women’s Wellness Clinic at Stanford

Our Stanford Medicine Children’s Health obstetrics and maternal-fetal-medicine program partners with this clinic to help bring care to our patients who are experiencing serious mental health conditions. The Women’s Wellness Clinic offers:

  • Psychological care - When pregnancy brings with it mental health conditions due to repeat miscarriage or loss, traumatic birth, or unrelated trauma, this clinic can help you cope during your pregnancy with one-on-one therapy. Care includes six sessions of individual therapy, followed by a reevaluation for more as needed. Care can extend throughout pregnancy and a few months postpartum.
  • Medication guidance - Helping you understand the safe use of psychotropic medication during fertility treatments, pregnancy, and nursing.
  • DBT Pregnancy and Postpartum group - Postpartum (after delivery) is a time of increased sensitivity to emotions, poor sleep, hormonal shifts, and an identity shift as a new parent, affecting psychological and emotional wellness, including postpartum depression.
    • This skill-based group is for pregnant women or for women who have delivered in the past year who are struggling with big emotions and finding it hard to cope, including those with postpartum depression or anxiety.
    • You come together with other women to learn mindfulness skills and ways to manage your emotions and stress. A dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) approach is taken, which provides tools to self-regulate emotions and help your life go more smoothly. This group offers three content modules (different subjects and focuses) that last for eight to 12 sessions each. Groups run continually, and attendees are welcome to join at the start of a new module. You can decide to attend only one module or stay for more.
  • Mindfulness/relaxation training - One-on-one sessions are offered by a mindfulness teacher to individuals during their fertility journey, including pre- and postconception, pregnancy, and postpartum (after delivery), to learn valuable skills of focusing on the present moment, being conscious and accepting of your thoughts, and relaxing into your body.

If you are interested in learning more about these pregnancy mental health services, talk with your Stanford Children’s medical provider for more information.