Why Maternal Mental Health Support Should Go Beyond the OB Visit

When I think back to those first weeks after having my baby, I remember the feeding.

I remember the questions.

Was my baby getting enough?
Was I producing enough?
Was I doing this right?

But what I remember most now is how much those questions were connected to everything else I was experiencing.

The exhaustion. The uncertainty. The pressure I was putting on myself. The physical recovery. The feeling that I was supposed to know what I was doing when, in reality, I had never done anything like this before.

At the time, I thought I was having a hard time with feeding.

Looking back, I realize I was having a hard time being a new mother.

And those two things were never separate.

Today, I work as SimpliFed's Care Delivery Manager, where I help lead the delivery of virtual lactation and maternal health support. That means I have the unusual perspective of being both a mother who has lived through the postpartum experience and a care professional who now hears from parents navigating it every day.

The more parents I talk to, the more convinced I am that we are missing something when we separate feeding, physical recovery, and maternal mental health into different parts of care.

‍

What is the connection between feeding challenges and maternal mental health?

Feeding challenges can have a significant emotional impact on new parents.

When breastfeeding, pumping, or bottle feeding isn't going as expected, parents may experience stress, anxiety, guilt, frustration, isolation, or a sense that they are failing. These emotions can be compounded by sleep deprivation, physical recovery after birth, hormonal changes, and the enormous transition into parenthood.

That doesn't mean every parent experiencing feeding challenges has a mental health condition.

It means that feeding can be an important window into a parent's overall well-being.

And sometimes, the person asking, "How is feeding going?" is in a position to hear something that might otherwise go unsaid. 

‍

We talk about postpartum mental health as if it happens in one appointment

When we talk about maternal mental health, we often talk about screening.

Did someone ask about postpartum depression? Did they complete the questionnaire? Did they score above the threshold?

Those questions are important. Screening can help identify parents who may need additional support, and every new mother should have access to appropriate mental health screening and treatment.

But I don't think screening at one point in time is enough, because mental health doesn't always announce itself by saying, I am depressed.

Sometimes it looks like crying because your baby won't latch. Sometimes it looks like being terrified that your baby isn't getting enough milk. Sometimes it looks like feeling like a failure because feeding isn't going the way you imagined it would.

Sometimes it looks like exhaustion that you assume is simply part of having a newborn.

Sometimes it looks like saying, "I'm fine," because you don't even know how to explain that you're not.

And sometimes it comes out when someone asks a question that seems completely unrelated to mental health:

"How is feeding going?"

‍

Can lactation support help identify maternal mental health concerns?

Yes, but lactation professionals should not be expected to diagnose or treat mental health conditions outside their scope.

Their role can be different and equally important: creating a trusted point of contact where concerns can be noticed, discussed, and appropriately connected to additional care.

One of the things that has stayed with me about my own experience is how much can come out of a conversation.. My conversations with my care team weren't always about mental health. Often, they were about my baby or about feeding. About what I was struggling with that day.

But those conversations created space for me to talk about what was happening more broadly.

That matters because new mothers don't necessarily walk into an appointment thinking:

Today I'm going to talk about my mental health.

‍

We think:

I'm exhausted.

I'm overwhelmed.

I'm worried.

I don't know if this is normal.

I don't know if I'm doing this right.

‍

Those are the things we say out loud.

And sometimes, those are the clues that someone needs to ask one more question.

Now, as someone who helps oversee care delivery at SimpliFed, I see this same dynamic from the other side.

Parents come to us because they have a feeding question. They want to know about pumping. They're worried about supply. Their baby isn't latching. They're experiencing pain. They aren't sure whether to supplement.

But the conversation doesn't always stay there.

Sometimes, what starts as a feeding question becomes a conversation about how overwhelmed a parent feels. Those moments have taught me that the question we're asking matters—but so does what we do when we hear the answer.

‍

Why maternal mental health support needs to extend beyond the OB visit

I was lucky to have people I could talk to.

But I couldn't help thinking about how many mothers don't.

Our healthcare system is structured around appointments. You see your OB, you have your postpartum visit. You take your baby to the pediatrician and you may see a lactation consultant.

And then you go home.

But some of the hardest moments happen when you're not sitting in a doctor's office. They happen at 3 a.m., after another difficult feeding. They happen when you're alone and exhausted and wondering whether everyone else is somehow handling motherhood better than you are.

They happen in the days and weeks between appointments.

Those moments matter.

And the people who interact with new mothers during those moments matter, too. The postpartum period is not a single appointment. It is a continuum of physical, emotional, and social changes that unfolds over weeks and months.

Our model of care needs to reflect that reality.

‍

We need more people looking at the whole mother

A lactation consultant isn't a mental health provider.

An OB isn't a lactation consultant.

A pediatrician isn't a postpartum therapist.

And they shouldn't be expected to become all of those things.

But they can all be part of a system that sees the whole person. A feeding specialist can notice that a parent seems overwhelmed. An OB can recognize that something has changed. A pediatrician can hear anxiety in a parent's questions. A virtual care provider can create another touchpoint when getting to an office feels impossible. And the right partners can help make those additional touchpoints possible.

The answer isn't for everyone to diagnose everything.

The answer is to make sure that when someone notices something, there is somewhere for that concern to go. That requires connected care and it requires communication between providers. It requires us to stop thinking about maternal mental health as something that belongs exclusively to behavioral healthcare.

‍

How SimpliFed incorporates mental health screening into feeding care

This isn't just a theoretical question for SimpliFed.

It grew out of what our clinicians were seeing and hearing every day.

Parents came to SimpliFed because they were struggling with feeding. They were worried about milk supply. They were experiencing pain. They were overwhelmed by pumping. They were anxious about whether their baby was getting enough.

And over and over again, we saw how difficult feeding could affect a parent's emotional well-being.

The more we listened, the harder it became to believe that we could truly support feeding without also paying attention to the parent behind the feeding plan.

A difficult feeding journey can bring stress, anxiety, guilt, isolation, and feelings of failure—all while a parent is already navigating physical recovery, sleep deprivation, major hormonal changes, and the enormous adjustment of becoming responsible for another human being.

‍

At some point, we had to ask ourselves:

If we are asking parents how feeding is going, shouldn't we also be asking how they are doing?

That question changed how we approached care.

‍

SimpliFed made the decision to incorporate mental health screening into every visit.

For me, that decision is deeply personal—but it is also a care-delivery decision.

A screening is not a diagnosis.

Our clinicians are not expected to solve every problem a parent brings to a visit.

What we can do is create a consistent opportunity to check in.

We can normalize the question.

We can listen for signs that someone may need additional support. See info about how to find more support here: https://www.raisingyellowflags.com/

We can identify when something may warrant follow-up.

And we can connect parents to the appropriate resources or care when they need more than we can provide.

Most importantly, we don't have to wait for a parent to know exactly what to ask for. And we can make sure that a concern doesn't simply disappear when the appointment ends.

That is what whole-person care should look like.

‍

Mental health shouldn't be something we look for only when there is a crisis. It should be part of how we care for the whole parent, every time.

‍

Putting Mental Health Screening Into Practice

We didn’t want to stop at simply screening for mental health—we wanted to make sure we were doing it right, from identifying a concern to knowing what the appropriate next step should be. 

SimpliFed worked closely with Biogen and their medical team  SimpliFed and Biogen explored what happens when repeated maternal mental health screening is incorporated into a place women are already going for support and saw a meaningful increase in referrals. We worked closely to review our screening workflows, ensure they aligned with clinical best practices and compliance requirements, and build a clear process for responding when a patient needed additional support. 

Biogen brought their expertise, helping us make sure that we weren’t just talking about the importance of maternal mental health—we were practicing it in the way we deliver care every day.

‍

Maternal mental health is maternal health

My experience changed the way I think about postpartum care.

My work at SimpliFed has reinforced it.

I no longer see feeding, physical recovery, and mental health as separate parts of the postpartum experience.

They are all part of the same person.

And that means maternal mental health can't live in a silo.

We need to look for it in the OB office, certainly.

But also during a lactation visit.

During a pediatric appointment.

During a virtual check-in.

During a conversation about pumping.

During the moments when a mother finally admits, "I'm having a really hard time."

The postpartum period is too important—and too complicated—to be reduced to a single visit.

We need more touchpoints.

We need more connected care.

We need more people looking at the whole mother.

And sometimes, we need to understand that when a mother says, "I'm struggling with feeding," she may be telling us something much bigger.

As both a mother and someone who works in care delivery, I've learned that our job isn't always to have the answer immediately.

Sometimes, our job is to notice.

To ask another question.

To listen.

And to make sure that when a parent tells us they're struggling, they don't have to figure out what to do next alone.

That is what maternal healthcare should look like.

Not care in silos. Not support only when something becomes a crisis. But connected care that sees the whole mother—and meets her where she is.

‍