A third of Scottish mothers suffering extreme postnatal depression do not receive the expert care they should, according to a report.
The Mental Welfare Commission found that women who are not treated in Scotland's two specialist mother and baby unit were separated from their babies for long periods of time, contrary to guidelines.
They were also less positive about the care they received compared to mothers who were treated at the specialist units.
The report, Keeping Mothers and Babies in Mind, also found that only five of Scotland's 14 health boards offer a local specialist community mental health service.
Dr Gary Morrison, Executive Director for Medical at the Commission, said: "National guidelines recommend that women with severe mental illness who need psychiatric admission late in pregnancy or within a year of childbirth, should be admitted to a specialist unit, unless there are specific reasons for not doing so.
"The Mental Health Act says they should be admitted to hospital with their baby.
"Our survey found that this was not always happening. One reason appears to be the difficult choice many women are faced with – whether to move away from their local community to be treated in a specialist unit, or whether to accept care in a non-specialist ward nearer home.
"This is a hard choice to make, and can put additional pressure on a mother, and on her family at home."
The report recommends that better training and better child-friendly facilities on general mental health wards and better specialist community services.
Dr Roch Cantwell, chair of the Perinatal Faculty of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland, added: "This report is a timely reminder that, while Scotland has done much to develop services for pregnant and postnatal women who experience mental health problems, there are still significant gaps in service provision.
"It should not be the case that, at such a critical time for a woman and her developing child, where she lives can determine her access to specialised advice and treatment."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here