Mental health care after birth

The Senate’s Select Committee on Women’s Health is holding an inquiry into women’s health. Our submission is about mental health care after birth. It covers what women go through after birth, what care costs and how easy it is to get, the programs that provide it, and the data that should show whether they work.

Australia now asks women about their mental health in pregnancy and after birth. What happens next is left to the woman. She has to find a usual GP, get a plan, find a psychologist with a free appointment and work out what it will cost, all with a new baby.

Most women with depression or anxiety after birth sit in the “missing middle”. They are too unwell for brief help but not unwell enough for public perinatal teams. Their main funded path is a GP plan and Better Access, which was not designed around a baby. Sessions are capped by calendar year, plans must now come from a usual GP or MyMedicare practice, and the rebate has not kept pace with the cost of care.

• Start a clock, not a search. After a positive screen, a named party should be responsible for connecting each woman with treatment within a set time. The main measure should be the time from screen to first appointment.
• Build the door around the baby. One Medicare perinatal care episode from pregnancy until the child turns two, or for a year after the loss of a baby, for mothers and partners. A GP, obstetrician, midwife, child and family health nurse, hospital perinatal team or crisis accommodation service could refer, without first needing a plan from a usual GP.
• Keep cost from ending care. A perinatal Medicare rebate that reflects the real cost of care and is indexed each year.
• Go to women who have left violence. Fund psychologists to visit women’s crisis accommodation, for pregnant women and mothers of young children, with no GP plan needed first.
• Use local practices. Where a Primary Health Network finds a gap in this care, it should commission it from local community psychology practices, with plain local information on where to go after a screen.
• Count what happens next. National data on screening, referral, treatment and out-of-pocket cost, for mothers and partners, by region. Deaths by suicide in the first year after birth should be counted in maternal death reporting.
• Train where the births are. Supervised placements for provisional psychologists in perinatal care in growth corridors.

Not yet. We lodged it on 7 October 2026 and the committee has not published it yet.