Perinatal & Postpartum Program
Now Offered through our New Center for Adults: Flourish Therapy +Wellness Center
We’ve offered services for adults, primarily parents and young adults, for many years. As we expand our services for adults of all ages, we’re excited to announce our dynamic new center: Flourish Therapy + Wellness Center! At Flourish, we provide therapy, learning and connection opportunities, and wellness programs for adults of all ages. Our team is dedicated to providing safe, culturally responsive spaces for growth, healing, finding joy and purpose, and celebrating connection. Learn more on the Flourish website!
We know how beautiful, frustrating, exciting and exhausting it can be to begin the parenthood journey. Our compassionate therapists offer unique support and resources to assist women and couples in gently finding their way through the many stages of starting or growing a family – a journey that can entail pregnancy loss, pregnancy after a loss, infertility, and perinatal/ postpartum depression and anxiety. Our Maternal Mental Health program offers a specialized and comprehensive array of services for women, couples and families: individual, dyadic (mother and child) and couple therapy, mindfulness and skill-based therapy support groups, parent consultation, as well as educational-training workshops for doulas and maternal mental health practitioners. All of our therapy services for individuals, groups and families are being offered online via Telehealth (online therapy) during the coronavirus crisis. Telehealth can be a safe and effective way to connect with an experienced therapist via a secure video platform. For more information, please see our coronavirus Practice Plan and resources.
Recommended Resources:
• Our Perinatal and Postpartum Program Flier
• Postpartum Mental Health Myths versus Facts
• Getting the Help you Deserve: Baby Blues versus Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorder
• Postpartum Mental Health Resources
Pregnancy Support
While pregnant mothers often feel excitement and joy, many expectant mothers also describe feeling anxious, stressed or “low.” Most women chalk this up to pregnancy hormones or moodiness, and don’t seek out the necessary care. As many as 20 percent of pregnant women suffer from perinatal (during pregnancy) anxiety or depression. Given the needed focus on physical health, a pregnant mother’s mental health and emotional well-being are frequently overlooked. A woman is at a greater risk of developing a perinatal mood disorder than she is of getting gestational diabetes. Untreated, perinatal anxiety and depression can worsen with time, increase the risk of premature birth, and become a precursor to postpartum mental health disorders.
We are committed to supporting the emotional and mental health of pregnant women and their partners as they prepare for the healthy birth of their little one.
Our comprehensive and specialized assessment and treatment services for the perinatal stage include individual and couples therapy and therapy support groups for pregnant mothers.
Postpartum
The birth of a baby brings with it a sea change of profound emotions — joy, excitement, awe, anxiety and confusion. Having a baby, whether your first or your third, creates a monumental shift that ripples through every hemisphere of your life while changing your relationships with your partner, extended family, and friends. Not surprisingly, mothers and fathers, are susceptible to postpartum mood disorders. One in seven women suffers from postpartum anxiety or depression. Up to 4 percent of fathers experience postpartum depression during their child’s first year. Untreated, postpartum mood disorders worsen over time, increase the risk of poor infant/parent attachment, and can lead to unhealthy development of the child.
As a new parent, it can feel difficult to tease apart if your feelings of worry, irritability, foggy thinking, inability to sleep, or excessive or too little eating are simply a function of new parenting or clinically significant. Our Maternal Mental Health team can help assess and provide appropriate comprehensive and specialized treatment.
Our postpartum therapy services for mothers and their partners include individual and couple therapy and therapy groups.
Pregnancy Loss and Pregnancy after a Loss
Pregnancy loss, whether due to a miscarriage or medically induced, strikes a deluge of unexpected emotions for the parents – grief, sadness, anger, confusion and fear. Although common, coping with pregnancy loss is rarely discussed openly in our society, leaving couples poorly equipped to handle unanticipated questions around mourning and commemorating the loss, physical and emotional recovery, communicating the news to family and friends, and how to solicit the much-needed support to move forward.
The grief and anxiety can reappear when couples eventually do get pregnant again after a birth loss. Our Maternal Mental Health team helps mothers and couples cope through the difficult experience of losing a pregnancy, and eventually getting pregnant again, with grace, kindness, compassion and tangible skills.
Our comprehensive assessment and treatment services for pregnancy loss, and for pregnancy after a loss include individual and couples therapy, as well as therapy support groups.
For more information on any of these services, please contact our Intake Coordinator at intake@IFGD.care or 626.585.8075, ext 108.
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