About Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Collaborative
What is the CPMHC ?
Our mission at the CPMHC is to lobby the federal government to create a national perinatal mental health strategy that will provide direction, policy, and funding for improvements to perinatal mental health care including universal screening and timely access to treatment for all individuals during preconception, pregnancy and the postpartum periods.
#NowMoreThanEver
Please watch our video compilation for our #NowMoreThanEver campaign featuring moms, mayors, provincial and federal politicians, actors (Juno Rinaldi, Sarah McVie, Jessica Holmes), all sharing why they believe Canada needs a national perinatal mental health strategy.
This campaign took place two months into the pandemic and culminated on World Maternal Mental Health Day in 2020.
Our #NowMoreThanEver
Please watch our video compilation for our #NowMoreThanEver campaign featuring moms, mayors, provincial and federal politicians, actors (Juno Rinaldi, Sarah McVie, Jessica Holmes), all sharing why they believe Canada needs a national perinatal mental health strategy.
Welcome to the official site for the Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Collaborative! Our Social Media Ambassadors are savvy individuals with lived experience who help us with our social media campaigns. We are working towards garnering a national perinatal mental health strategy that will leave no one behind. We want nothing less than universal screening and timely access to treatment for persons during the preconception, pregnancy and the postpartum periods.
Perinatal mental illness includes prenatal and postpartum depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, bipolar disorder, and psychosis.
In Canada and worldwide, 20% of women and 10% of men suffer from a perinatal mental illness. Perinatal mood and anxiety disorders are the most common obstetrical complication making it a significant public health concern.
Poor mental health affects the expectant and new mother’s overall emotional and physical well-being, but also impacts unborn, newborn and developing children, partners, family, friends and society as a whole.
Exposure to adverse childhood experiences, of which parental depression is one, results in high levels of toxic stress on a child’s developing brain that increases the likelihood of poor mental and physical health outcomes later in life.
Suicide is a leading cause of maternal death, with one in nine women dying by suicide in the U.K. Despite limitations in Canadian data suicide is the fourth leading cause of death, with one in 19 maternal deaths in Ontario attributed to suicide.
Maternal depression and anxiety are stronger risk factors for child behaviour problems than smoking, binge drinking, and emotional or physical domestic abuse.
More women suffer from perinatal mental illness than there are new cases of breast cancer and the combined new cases (all genders) of leukemia, tuberculosis, Multiple Sclerosis, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Diseases, Lupus, and epilepsy annually.
Cost estimates for untreated mothers and children affected by perinatal mental illness is estimated at $150,000 per mother child dyad with 72% of costs allocated to the child, which can be reduced to $5,000 with screening and treatment – 85% of mothers are not properly treated with a resulting annual economic cost to Canada of approximately $11 billion dollars.
Stigma, lack of public and professional awareness, and leaving the onus on the mothers to reach out for help, results in only 15% of mothers who experience a perinatal mental illness receiving professional treatment. Some countries, such as the U.K. and Australia, have maternal mental health strategies and screening guidelines in place.
Meet the Co-Founders
Jaime Charlebois
RN, BScN, PNC(C), MScN, PMH-C CPMHC Executive Director / Research Director
Patricia Tomasi, Bjourn
CPMHC Executive Director / Communications Director
Board of Directors
Yasmin Tuff
MHA, Principal, Yasmin Tuff Health Care Consulting, BC
Monique Moreau
she/her, Executive Director, Happy Roots Foundation, Ontario
Anita Brisson
PMP, CLSSBB, Ontario
Naomi Mendes-Pouget
Certified Queer Expectant and New Parent Coach, at Queer Nest, she/they, Ontario
Meaghan Norris
MSW, RSW, she/her, Nova Scotia
Dr. Kristin Horsley
Ontario
Rochelle Maurice
Ethicist, Ontario
Katherine Moore
she/her, Network Manager, Women’s Health Research Cluster, BC
Dr. Arvind Mohandoss,
Epidemiologist, Canadian Perinatal Nutrition Program, Nunavut
Erin Gurr
Northwest Territories
Dr. Judy Hagshi
she/her, Quebec
Victoria Hampton
B.S.W., R.S.W., Manitoba
Work With Us
Submissions have now closed.
Board of Directors – Volunteer Positions
The Canadian Perinatal Mental Health Collaborative formed its inaugural Board of Directors in 2022. Stay tuned for other opportunities to volunteer with the CPMHC.