New Push for Reproductive Psychiatry Board Certification — SkimNews
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- The North American Board of Reproductive Psychiatry is fundraising to mount the field's first board certification exam, founded by clinicians including Maria Muzik and Lauren Osborne as a workaround for the missing US subspecialty.
- More than 100,000 women with severe mental illnesses give birth annually in the United States, and most women with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder are mothers, per University of Michigan's Maria Muzik.
- Only 6% to 8% of women with peripartum depression receive adequate psychiatric treatment, and suicide and homicide combined are the leading cause of maternal mortality in the US.
- Thirteen percent of pregnant women use SSRIs, yet 80% of them get prescriptions from OB-GYNs rather than psychiatrists, Muzik told the author.
- The United States has 18 reproductive psychiatry fellowship programs—nearly all with a single trainee—falling short of the 25 fellowships and 50 trainees required for American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology subspecialty approval, a threshold Lauren Osborne estimates could take 15 to 20 years to reach.
- Michigan has an estimated 6 to 10 practicing reproductive psychiatrists statewide, while consultation hotlines such as UMass Chan's Lifeline for Moms and the University of Michigan's MC3 serve as stopgaps.
- The author recounts managing her own schizophrenia through years of pregnancy planning before ultimately choosing not to have children, citing fears about handling stress and insomnia.
Why it matters: Pregnant women with severe mental illness face a structural care shortage—only 6-8% of peripartum depression patients receive adequate treatment, suicide and homicide are the top maternal mortality cause, and 20% of women with serious mental illness are uninsured—so a self-organized certification exam is the first credible step toward building a workforce where nearly none currently exists.
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