Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Online group for GA moms with PPD at Cafemom and a weekly online support group beginning in August!

I am very excited to let you know about a new partnership we at MHA of Georgia are launching with CafeMom, which is the leading website for mothers, reaching 6 million moms each month. As part of our Project Healthy Moms initiative, we are working with CafeMom to create a unique online support group for local mothers suffering from postpartum depression and other perinatal mood disorders.  You can visit the new group, "Georgia PPD Support" at Cafemom.  The group will be a central place online where moms in Georgia can meet each other, ask for advice, and find support for their mental health struggles. The group will also feature a weekly live chat I will be facilitating.  Details about the live online support group chat will be announced in the next couple of weeks.

We hope this partnership between MHA of Georgia and CafeMom will help to provide new moms the peer support and connection to resources that they need in their journey towards wellness in the perinatal period (the time of pregnancy and one year following childbirth). In Georgia, it is estimated that every year about 20,000 women experience a perinatal mood or anxiety disorder. Unfortunately, these illnesses are still not on the public health radar screen. Consequently, there are very few providers with specialized training in this area and only one consistent live support group in the entire state. If you are a GA mom who has experienced PPD, you might have personally endured this challenging dilemma of extremely limited support and resources.  The Georgia Moms with PPD online support group is one step towards closing this gap in services. 


While the group will be aimed at women living in Georgia, and conversations around resources in the state of GA will likely ensue, anyone is welcome to join.  There is no fee associated with the group or the online support chat.  If you'd like to join the discussion and connect with other mothers now, please go to Georgia PPD Support at Cafemom.  Once on the page, you may sign-up by entering just a few pieces of information and creating an account.  My screen-name is AtlantaPPDMom; when you are viewing posts or participating in the chat you will see my comments and posts associated with this name.

Would you help us spread the word about this new partnership and support group? We encourage you to pass along a link to the group to your email contacts and/or let your members, clients, family, friends, neighbors, etc. know about it in any upcoming communications you have.  If you blog, tweet, Facebook or participate in other social networking communications, would you consider passing along word about this resource?  It will be only as successful as we are at spreading the word about this FREE, supportive and consistently available resource.