March of Dimes Training

Becoming a Mom/Comenzando bien® was created from two separate curricula: The Pregnancy Workshop, an English-language curriculum for pregnant women, and Comenzando bien®, a bilingual curriculum for Hispanic women. The new curriculum, Becoming a Mom/ Comenzando bien® is now a general, bilingual curriculum for all pregnant women.

The training will provide overview information about the Becoming  a Mom/Comenzando bien prenatal curriculum and presentation by expert speakers on perinatal topics like the important of prenatal care, nutrition/breastfeeding and why the last weeks of pregnancy count. 

Date: Tuesday November 9, 2010
Time: 8:00am - 4:00pm

First 5 San Bernardino, 330 North D St., 5th Floor
San Bernardino, CA 92415-0442
Children’s Conference Center

Cost: $15 - Includes breakfast, lunch and educational materials.

To register, please download the registration form.
For more information,  please contact Fernanda Crivici at (213) 637-5030 or fcrivici@marchofdimes.com

Expert Speaker: Screening, Identification, & Treatment Options

"Postpartum Mood and Anxiety Disorders: Screening, Identification, & Treatment Options"

November 11, 2010 at 6:00 pm
Access Acupuncture
26323 Jefferson Avenue Murrieta, CA 92562-6971 map

RSVP with lilypad35@hotmail.com or to littlepapoosebirthdoula@yahoo.com

Women are at much higher risk for developing mental health disorders during the postpartum period than at any other time in their lives. Mary Obata, M.A., MFT, will present information about the range of postpartum mood and anxiety disorders, screening tools and warning signs, and options for treatment.

Mary Obata is past president of the San Diego Postpartum Health Alliance. She has a private practice in Central San Diego and specializes in pregnancy and postpartum issues as well as EMDR therapy and other trauma therapies. For for more information about Mary, please visit her website

In the News: PPD Screening

The American Academy of Pediatrics just published a report about encouraging the screening of new mothers and fathers for depression.

"Every year, more than 400 000 infants are born to mothers who are depressed, which makes perinatal depression the most underdiag- nosed obstetric complication in America. Postpartum depression leads to increased costs of medical care, inappropriate medical care, child abuse and neglect, discontinuation of breastfeeding, and family dysfunction and adversely affects early brain development. Pediatric practices, as medical homes, can establish a system to implement postpartum depression screening and to identify and use community resources for the treatment and referral of the depressed mother and support for the mother-child (dyad) relationship. This system would have a positive effect on the health and well-being of the infant and family. State chapters of the American Academy of Pediatrics, working with state Early Periodic Screening, Diagnosis, and Treatment (EPSDT) and maternal and child health programs, can increase awareness of the need for perinatal depression screening in the obstetric and pedi- atric periodicity of care schedules and ensure payment. Pediatricians must advocate for workforce development for professionals who care for very young children and for promotion of evidence-based interven- tions focused on healthy attachment and parent-child relationships."

The report is available for free to download

At Risk From the Womb

"Researchers are finding indications that obesity, diabetes and mental illness among adults are all related in part to what happened in the womb decades earlier."

"That study, published in 1989, provoked skepticism at first. But now an array of research confirms that the fetal period is a crucial stage of development that affects physiology decades later."

Read more at NY Times

Second Study provides evidence for smaller babies from depressed mothers

Another study supporting that depressed mother are at a higher risk of delivering smaller babies..

"In the United States, the likelihood of experiencing premature birth is even greater for depressed pregnant women living in poverty than for depressed pregnant women from middle- to high-socioeconomic backgrounds," said the lead author of the report, Dr. Nancy Grote, University of Washington (UW)research associate professor of social work. Compounding the situation, she added, "Poor women in America are twice as likely to experience depression, compared to other women in this country."

See Embracing Families first suggested study

View more of this latest study from Science Direct or at Pubmed

Research Study: Home Health preventing PPD

"Women who are given psychological support by specially trained health visitors are less likely to develop post-natal depression, says a report."

"The findings are in a study, from the universities of Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield, of more than 2,000 women following childbirth."

Read more from BBC News   |   A free version of the study

Research Study: Brain inactivity and PPD

"Women with postpartum depression have differences in brain functioning that may interfere not only with how they process their own emotions, but also with their ability to be responsive to the emotions of their infants, new research suggests."

"In a small study that involved MRI brain scans, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center revealed that women with postpartum depression have reduced activity in parts of the brain that control emotional responses and recognize emotional cues in others."

Read more from Nursing Knowledge International   |   Get study information from PubMed