Postpartum psychosis is a serious condition that is treatable if recognised early. The charity Action on Postpartum Psychosis, is hosting a free webinar and invites midwives and other health professionals to attend.
Action on Postpartum Psychosis (APP), the UK charity for families affected by postpartum psychosis, is hosting a free webinar for midwives and other frontline health professionals, aimed at helping to reduce the maternal suicide rate.
The Alex Baish Memorial Webinar is taking place on Wednesday 8th October at 12pm. APP experts, women and families with lived experience and clinicians will highlight the early signs and symptoms of postpartum psychosis (PP) and discuss how frontline health professionals can work with perinatal mental health teams to help prevent suicide, the leading cause of maternal death in the UK.
Postpartum psychosis affects 1,200 new mothers in the UK each year and more than 140,000 women across the world (that’s around 1-2 in every 1,000 births). Symptoms include hallucinations, delusions, mania, depression and unusual behaviour and onset within days of childbirth, often to women with no previous mental health history. Symptoms can be frightening and escalate rapidly, and postpartum psychosis must be managed as a medical emergency for the safety of both mother and baby.
The webinar is now in its third year and is made possible thanks to fundraising by Rich Baish, along with his family and friends, in memory of his wife Alex who took her own life whilst unwell with PP. Since losing Alex, Rich has been working to ensure healthcare professionals, antenatal educators and expectant parents are made aware of the signs, symptoms and risks of PP, in the hope that no other families will have to go through what he has. Rich says:
“There is the obvious tragedy of losing my wife, which is a scar that my family and I will bear forever. But there’s also another tragedy in the sense that because PP is a treatable illness, I now know that if signs were spotted and acted on quickly, she would still be with us today.
I want Alex to be remembered for all the right reasons; not just as the incredible teacher, daughter, wife and mum that she was, but as the reason why mothers in the future are safe when they develop postpartum psychosis.”
Dr Jess Heron, Chief Executive of APP, says: “With the right care, women recover from postpartum psychosis. With these free webinars, we hope to help prevent deaths due to postpartum psychosis and reduce some of the needless trauma families face as they develop the illness and seek care. If we can educate all professionals working on the frontline with new parents to know the risks, the signs and symptoms, how to get the right help, and to understand a bit about supporting families during this dreadful crisis, we know we can save lives.”
This year’s webinar will be delivered in collaboration with The National Centre for Mental Health at Cardiff University (NCMH) and General Practitioners Championing Perinatal Mental Health Care (GPCPC). More than 6,400 health professionals have signed up in previous years. Of attendees, 93% rated the training as ‘excellent’; 7% rated it ‘good’ and 100% agreed they would change their practice as a result:
“Really well put together- the content, the speakers, the information sharing and all the research and evidence presented. This is exactly the type of training needed. The issue is too urgent to ignore and too desperate to not be passionate about.”
“This webinar was so powerful that I think this should be a mandatory training video for all working in perinatal.”
Midwives who have attended previous years’ webinars have highlighted how useful they found each session, having the opportunity to hear lived experience stories, changing perceptions that PP only happens to certain people and learning more about informing families about the signs and risks in the antenatal period.
Free places for the 8th October webinar can be booked here. You can also support APP by promoting the event with colleagues and networks. A webinar poster can be downloaded here.
Louise Bennett, UK Programme Manager at Action on Postpartum Psychosis
September 2025
2 comments
I am interest to this webinar. I am a midwife and lecturer who had expertise is postpartum mental health. By this webinar, I hope I get huge networking to increase my knowledge, especially in postpartum mental health disorder.
I’m interested in this webinar
Comments are closed.