Maternal Mental Health Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

DHHR To Distribute Federal Funding For Mental Health And Substance Use Services

In a release, the DHHR outlined seven grant programs that will support various health initiatives across the state.

More than $33 million in federal funding was awarded to the Bureau for Behavioral Health (BBH) to enhance mental health and substance use prevention services for West Virginians.

Federal funding from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) will support prevention, early intervention, treatment and recovery services across the state.

“BBH and its partners are seizing every opportunity to meet our state’s behavioral health needs,” said Dawn Cottingham-Frohna, commissioner for the West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources’ (DHHR) Bureau for Behavioral Health. “With this funding, we are not only addressing the immediate needs of our communities but also investing in the long-term well-being of West Virginians.”

In a release, the DHHR outlined seven grant programs that will support various initiatives:

The Screening and Treatment for Maternal Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders program will provide $750,000 annually for five years from the Health Resources and Services Administration to expand health care provider’s capacity to screen, assess, treat and refer pregnant and postpartum women for maternal mental health and Substance Use Disorder (SUD). BBH is partnering with the West Virginia Perinatal Partnership’s Drug Free Moms and Babies Project to implement the program.
The Children’s Mental Health Initiative will provide $3,000,000 annually for four years to provide resources to improve the mental health outcomes for children and youth up to age 21, who are at risk for, or have serious emotional disturbance or serious mental illness and their families with connection to mobile crisis response and stabilization teams and other community-based behavioral health services through the 24/7 Children’s Crisis and Referral Line (844-HELP4WV).
The First Responders – Comprehensive Addiction and Recovery Act Grant will provide $800,000 annually for four years to build upon the Police and Peers program implemented by DHHR’s Office of Drug Control Policy. The activities will be administered by the Bluefield Police Department, Fayetteville Police Department, and the Logan County Sheriff’s Office in collaboration with Southern Highlands Community Mental Health Center, Fayette County Health Department and Logan County Health Department.
The Projects for Assistance in Transition from Homelessness grant will distribute $300,000 annually for two years to support the system of care for adults in West Virginia and promote access to permanent housing and referral to mental health, substance abuse treatment and health care services. Grantees are located in areas of the state with the most need, based on the population of individuals experiencing homelessness, including the Greater Wheeling Coalition for the Homeless, Prestera Center, Raleigh County Community Action, the West Virginia Coalition to End Homelessness and Westbrook Health Services.
The Promoting the Integration of Primary and Behavioral Health Care grant will provide $1,678,044 annually over five years to serve adults with serious mental illness who have co-occurring physical health conditions or chronic diseases and adults with SUD. Three provider partner agencies have been identified to work on this project including Seneca Health Services Inc., Southern Highlands Community Behavioral Health Center and United Summit Center, covering 16 counties in the state.
The Cooperative Agreements for States and Territories to Improve Local 988 Capacity will provide $1,251,440 annually for three years to enhance the capacity of West Virginia’s single 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline center, which is funded by BBH and operated by First Choice Services, to answer calls, chats and texts initiated in the state. In addition to this award, First Choice Services received $500,000 from Cooperative Agreements for 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Crisis Center Follow-Up Programs and a National Chat and Text Backup Center award from Vibrant Emotional Health to help answer overflow chats and texts from more than 200 local 988 centers nationwide.
The Behavioral Health Partnership for Early Diversion of Adults and Youth will provide $330,000 annually for five years to establish or expand programs that divert youth and young adults up to age 25 with mental illness or a co-occurring disorder from the criminal or juvenile justice system to community-based mental health and SUD services.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting with support from Charleston Area Medical Center and Marshall Health.

WVU Professor Awarded $13 Million to Study Treatment For Rural Depression Patients

A West Virginia University researcher has been awarded a $13.3 million from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute to compare three treatment strategies for rural depressed patients.

Rates of depression tend to be higher in rural areas, and accessing treatment is more difficult.

WVU professor Robert Bossarte will compare three treatment options: prescribing antidepressants alone, antidepressants combined with unguided online cognitive behavior therapy, and antidepressants combined with guided online cognitive behavior therapy.

Cognitive behavior therapy is a way of training your brain to react differently to stressful triggers, using tools like breathing and muscle relaxation.

Unguided therapy provides online instruction designed to determine what makes patient symptoms worse, and to change how they respond to those triggers.

During guided therapy patients will check-in with a cognitive behavior coach.

The study will include 8,000 West Virginia depression patients.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Marshall Health, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.

Improving Maternal Mental Health – Women Say They Need More Support

Depression and anxiety both during pregnancy and afterwards are common, affecting 4 to 17 percent of all mothers, according to a 2015 study published in the Journal of Affective Disorders.

“I have struggled with anxiety and depression for as long as I can remember, even as a child I struggled with that sort of thing,” said Jennifer Petrosky, a therapist who has two young children. “And what I have learned about maternal health as a therapist and just being a mom is it’s just not discussed until after the baby is born.”

Even then, she said, her doctor just asked her if she was suicidal – she wasn’t – and left it at that. She was able to cope until she got pregnant again.

“When I got pregnant with my daughter, my dad had passed away about two months before that, we’d had a miscarriage, my husband had chronic fatigue and couldn’t get out of bed most of the winter. I know stress played a big role, but everyday I just cried in the shower because I was so anxious and so depressed and I was like ‘there’s no village around me to help.’”

“The way that we live, the trends in our current society, definitely compound or magnify the experience of postpartum depression,” said Michelle Comer, the West Virginia support coordinator for Postpartum Support International and a therapist specializing in maternal mental health. “It isn’t new – it’s been around since moms have been having babies.”

Comer said a big help to moms who are feeling anxious, depressed and alone is connecting with others in the same boat.

“We were never intended to parent in isolation,” she said.

And yet many women find themselves asked to be supermom – to be everything for everyone and to do it by themselves.

“And a lot of people say, ‘Oh, I live around a lot of people,’ or ‘I go to church and they’re really nice.’ But that’s not people living with you,” said Danielle Bergum. Bergum has a 9-year-old and a 5-year-old. When she got pregnant the first time, it wasn’t planned and she didn’t want to be pregnant. The rolling emotions led to severe prenatal depression and a lingering sense of isolation.

“Historical, tribal culture – the only thing that they were doing was survival. They had help just with basic survival needs,” said Bergum. “And we’re expected to not only do our basic survival stuff on our own, we’re expected to do everything we put on top of that on our own, just to function in this culture that we’ve created. So part of it is this perspective about what being successful is and what you’re supposed to do as a mom, as a dad.”

Bergum ended up becoming a doula (a birth support person) and a birth educator. She focused on her nutrition and overhauled her lifestyle so that she felt balanced again. For her, this meant finding a job she could do from home and homeschooling her kids. It was a long process.

For others like Sarah Dusenbery, though, feeling “normal” again may involve medication.

“After I had my second child five years later, it was just like the same thing repeated itself. And that’s when I kind of realized something was wrong, but I was too ashamed because it’s not talked about enough,” said Dusenbery.

Dusenbery didn’t get help until after the birth of her third child, despite the fact that feelings of anxiety and depression lingered for months, then years, after each birth. Now that she’s on medication for her anxiety and depression, she said she feels like a new person.

For all three women, and probably for many of the moms in your life, a recurring theme is the need for support and the desire for a return to some kind of village where the burdens, and joys, of raising children, can be shared.

Appalachia Health News is a project of West Virginia Public Broadcasting, with support from the Marshall Health, Charleston Area Medical Center and WVU Medicine.