New board targets US reproductive psychiatry care gap — SkimNews
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- More than 100,000 women with severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder have children every year in the United States, yet suicide and homicide combined are the leading cause of maternal mortality, according to the essay.
- Only 6-8% of women with peripartum depression receive adequate psychiatric treatment, per Maria Muzik, director of the University of Michigan's Perinatal and Reproductive Psychiatry Clinic.
- Thirteen percent of pregnant women use SSRIs, but 80% obtain their prescriptions from OB-GYNs rather than psychiatrists — Muzik estimates just 6 to 10 reproductive psychiatrists practice in all of Michigan.
- The North American Board of Reproductive Psychiatry, a newly formed nonprofit led by Muzik, Lauren Osborne, and other clinicians, is building its own certification exam because the US has no formal reproductive psychiatry subspecialty.
- Lauren Osborne of Weill Cornell Medicine warned that "anybody can hang out a shingle" as a reproductive psychiatrist with no real training; only 18 fellowship programs exist, short of the 25 required for formal subspecialty approval.
- Consultation hotlines like UMass Chan's Lifeline for Moms and the University of Michigan's MC3 have become a workaround, letting primary care physicians and OB-GYNs call specialists — but the essay argues this substitutes for a specialized workforce the country has never built.
Why it matters: Most pregnant women on psychiatric medications get prescriptions from OB-GYNs, not specialists, and fewer than 1 in 10 with peripartum depression receive adequate treatment. The new nonprofit's self-built certification is a workaround; Osborne estimates formal subspecialty recognition is 15-20 years away, leaving maternal mortality tied to suicide and homicide without specialized care for that stretch.
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