On day for healthy maternity, La. House votes for depression screening

BATON ROUGE—On Black Maternal Health Advocacy Day Wednesday, the House voted 101-0 to pass a bill to provide for perinatal mood disorder screening, specifically for postpartum depression and awareness.

Rep. Royce Duplessis, D-New Orleans, authored the mental health bill, House Bill 784, to help deal with Louisiana’s alarming maternal and infant mortality rates. Louisiana has the highest maternal death rate in the country and the second-highest infant death rate.

At a House Health and Welfare Committee meeting earlier this month, Robin Gruenfeld with the March of Dimes said, “One in seven women experience symptoms of depression during their pregnancy and the 12 months following delivery. These women are more likely to give birth preterm or experience the loss of an infant.”

The bill requires healthcare providers who offer postnatal care to screen patients for signs of postpartum depression or related health disorders. The healthcare provider will likely be the new mother’s obstetrician or their child’s pediatrician.

Screening tools include a patient health questionnaire, the postpartum depression screening scale and the perinatal grief intensity scale.

After the providers administer the screening, they can refer the patient to a mental health professional if necessary.

“Screening alone, the simple recognition that there may be a problem, can have clinical benefits,” said Gruenfeld.

During the Health and Welfare Committee meeting, the chairman, Rep. Larry Bagley, R-Stonewell, shared emotional testimony on the effect postpartum depression had on his family. Bagley said that he lost his wife to suicide after her struggle with postpartum depression.

Duplessis said: “This is a real issue for mothers who have just delivered that also ends up becoming a very real issue for babies and for our children.”

According to Gruenfeld, postpartum depression disproportionately affects women of color and impoverished women. Poverty is associated with twice the rate of postpartum depression.

“Mothers are really struggling right now,” said Meshawn Tarver with The Institute of Women and Ethnic Studies.

Tarver said the pandemic and current economy has only made things harder for new mothers. She said the bill is not only about screening but about spreading awareness.

The bill requires all hospitals and birthing centers to provide women with information about postpartum depression, its symptoms and treatment and other resources before discharge.

Tarver hopes that the bill, which now goes to the Senate, will improve birth outcomes in Louisiana.

“Healing begins with screening,” said Gruenfeld.