Giving Compass' Take:
- Sara Heath highlights HRSA’s maternal mental health hotline, emphasizing the need for increased awareness and strategic community partnerships.
- How can donors support initiatives like this hotline to ensure improved access to maternal mental health resources, particularly for marginalized communities?
- Learn more about key issues in health and how you can help.
- Search our Guide to Good for nonprofits focused on health in your area.
What is Giving Compass?
We connect donors to learning resources and ways to support community-led solutions. Learn more about us.
The Health Resources and Services Administration wants you to know there's help available for anyone facing maternal mental health needs. Building on the success of its maternal mental health hotline (1-833-TLC-MAMA), the agency has announced plans to raise awareness through community health partnerships with what HRSA calls its maternal mental health champions.
"We're thrilled with the progress of the maternal mental health hotline," Jordan Grossman, the deputy administrator of HRSA, said in an interview.
HRSA launched the hotline on Mother's Day in 2022 with the intent to help pregnant people or new mothers get help for any anxiety or overwhelm they might be feeling. The hotline is free, confidential and available to users via phone call or text in either English or Spanish, with the option for interpretation in more than 60 other languages.
The maternal mental health hotline serves a key function as the nation continues to grapple with a disastrous maternal health and mortality problem.
In 2022, there were 22.3 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, according to the CDC. Mental health conditions are the leading cause of those pregnancy-related deaths, HRSA added, citing CDC figures indicating that around 80% of pregnancy-related deaths are preventable.
That's where the hotline comes in.
"We've served more than 50,000 people over the past two years, and we've gotten an extraordinarily positive response," Grossman said.
According to HRSA figures, 77% of the calls that the maternal mental health hotline fields are made by women in need themselves. More than half of callers are looking for postpartum help, while about a quarter were pregnant when they called.
The majority of callers were experiencing anxiety (20%), depression (24%) or feelings of overwhelm (33%), HRSA data shows.
The number of people helped, as well as the personal testimonies HRSA features on its website, are promising, but Grossman said the agency wants to go even further.
"We know there are many more women who could benefit from the maternal mental health hotline," he asserted.
Read the full article about HRSA’s maternal mental health hotline by Sara Heath at TechTarget.