With Mother’s Day right around the corner and this month being Mental Health Awareness Month the Southeastern Utah Health Department wanted to remind community members that Mom’s Mental Health Matters. Castle Country Radio was able to sit down with Nurse, Errin Rauhala to discuss how to help moms with their mental health.

Many new moms experience postpartum depression and it’s important that they know there is help available. “It is a medical diagnosis. One in five women experiences this during pregnancy and up to a year after. Seventy-five percent of women who experience the symptoms go untreated. So that’s showing us that we need to talk about it more, we need to bring more awareness to it and let moms know that there’s help out there, you don’t need to suffer alone, we can help you,” stated Rauhala. Moms should know that its okay to ask for help from family members, friends or therapists when it gets to be too overwhelming for them.

The Southeastern Utah Health Department has numerous resources for moms to seek assistance when it comes to their mental health. “At the health department every pregnant mom and postpartum mom we have them fill out a screening survey. We ask them all about how they’re feeling but depending on the score we really try to get them in touch with resources,” said Rauhala. The University of Utah is a great resource when it comes to mom’s mental health, they offer virtual group and individual therapy.

If there are moms that are feeling overwhelmed you can reach out to the health department for assistance. “They can call, we can do a screening down there or we can talk to them one-on-one and give them all of our resources that we have and help them get into appointments or make an appointment,” said Rauhala. The Southeastern Utah Health Department can be reached at (435) 637-3671 or the University of Utah has a great screening tool that can be accessed by visiting is.gd/momsmh