Many people are not aware of the prevalence of postpartum depression and its dangerous consequences. For this reason, we are working hard to get the word out.

Education for Health Care Providers
Our outreach efforts center on educating health-care professionals about PPD screening and treatment. Led by our dynamic speaker, FMHI President Ralph Wittenberg, M.D., we makes presentations on PPD to a wide variety of health care professionals.

Presentations are customized to each audience and often begin with the following informational slide show:

We have presented to groups of all sizes including Bolling Air Force Base, DeWitt Army Hospital, the National Naval Medical Center, Sibley Hospital, Potomac Hospital, Prince Georges County Medical Center, Mary’s Center, Mount Vernon Hospital, The District of Columbia Pediatric Group, Easton Memorial Hospital in Talbot County, Maryland, the Washington Hospital Center, and the Foxhall Obstetrics and Gynecology Practice.

To schedule a presentation for your group, please contact us at president@ppdhope.org.

Coming soon we will offer a training manual and DVD for doctors, nurses and other professionals working with pregnant women and new mothers.

Education for New Moms
FMHI proudly provides Informational brochures and other handouts about PPD for new moms. Distributed to every new mother in the State of Virginia, it is also available at the National Naval Medical Center and a variety of facilities along the East Coast.

In addition, this website, www.ppdhope.org, is designed to provide education to pregnant and postpartum mothers, their families and friends.

Past Educational Programs
In 2005 we sponsored the annual National PPD Screening Day, during which we encouraged pregnant women and new moms to screen themselves for PPD at this website. We also urgeed health-care professionals to implement screening programs in their offices. Our first screening day event was on May 11, 2005, at the American Public Health Association building in Washington, D.C.

Under the direction of the Virginia Department of Health and University of Virginia, we participated in an expert panel that developed an online training course for physicians with CME credits.

We have also presented posters and round table discussions at professional conferences includeing that of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, North American Psychosocial section.

Screening Programs
Our mission is to make universal depression screening a national standard of care so that every pregnant woman and new mother is screened for PPD. In addition to our online screening test, we conducted a PPD screening program through a grant from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the federal government.

The program, entitled —“Improving Women’s Health Through Universal Perinatal Depression Screening in Primary Care Settings,” involved screening of all patients at multiple primary care sites in Washington, D.C including; Mary’s Center for Maternal and Child Care; the Pediatric Outpatient Clinic of the Children’s Hospital National Medical Center; The Healthy Start Initiative for Wards 1, 2, and 4; The Healthy Families Initiative of Wards, 1, 2, 4, and 5; the Columbia Road Clinic; and Providence Hospital.

We also promote universal screening through our professional education activities.