Perinatal Depression Outreach Program - Sinai Hospital of Baltimore

Sinai Hospital of Baltimore | Baltimore, MD

Services specific to perinatal mental health are sparse in our state, and those that exist are often difficult to access. In 2003, Sinai Hospital of Baltimore launched the Perinatal Depression Outreach Program (PDOP) to improve infant and maternal well-being through the identification and treatment of maternal mental health struggles. The perinatal social worker, physicians, and nurses on the post-partum unit designed protocols to increase awareness and treatment of depression among new mothers, including voluntary screening of new mothers using a validated depression screening instrument that combined the mental health assessment from the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale with the social risk factor assessment from the Postpartum Depression Predictors Inventory.