Maternal mental health problems are 'No. 1 complication in pregnancy'
Child and maternal health experts shared the challenge of providing wraparound care and extended research during a panel discussion on women’s health.
A discussion on women’s health in Washington, D.C., represented a collaboration between Children’s National Hospital and Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC. Melissa Schooley (from left) moderated a panel that included Nia Imani Bodrick, Catherine Limperopoulos, and Brittany Howell. Photo by Leigh Anne Kelley for Virginia Tech.
Modern medicine treats patients independently, but when it comes to women’s health, physicians and researchers stressed the need for a holistic approach during a recent panel discussion on maternal health in Washington, D.C.
“Maternal health is children’s health,” said Catherine Limperopoulos, chief and director of the Developing Brain Institute at Children’s National Hospital. “Many people aren’t aware that maternal mental health problems” — such as postpartum depression and anxiety — “are the No. 1 one complication in pregnancy.”
Limperopoulos was one of three featured speakers for the March 7 discussion on maternal health sponsored by Children’s National and the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at VTC, which has research programs in brain and behavior development in Roanoke on the Virginia Tech Health Sciences and Technology campus and cancer research programs in Roanoke as well the Children’s National Research & Innovation Campus in Washington, D.C.
As a pediatrician with Children’s National, Nia Imani Bodrick is directly involved in caring for patients. She said while women may put off care for themselves, they prioritize pediatric visits for their children — making those regular wellness checks an ideal time to intervene.
Bodrick said there’s a need to support projects such as HealthySteps, which began as a research program and has been integrated into pediatric practices in 25 states, Germany, and Washington, D.C., including Bodrick’s.
“One of the best things we do is we screen for postpartum depression up to six months, and we keep short-term mental health on staff,” Bodrick said, although recruiting and retaining those providers is a challenge. The evidence-based program also is designed to identify and address a child’s developmental delays early and ensure families have the support they need.
At the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute, Assistant Professor Brittany Howell studies factors that influence healthy infant brain development in her Maternal Influence on Neurodevelopment (MIND) Lab. Howell is also an investigator on the national HEALthy Brain and Child Development Study.
She explained the need for more research into factors that influence a child’s early years and said the timelines of budget cycles and the structure of research funding often don’t take into account unique attributes of maternal health and rapid changes that take place during early childhood.
Howell also said maternal health research would benefit from increased funding, giving the example of breast milk and the milk microbiome. “It’s an amazingly dynamic fluid, yet we know next to nothing,” she said. More study could provide evidence-based recommendations to clinicians and families, she said.
Comments during the event resonated with President Joe Biden’s proposal for broader support for women’s health research in general in his State of the Union address, which took place the same day. During the address, he said “women are more than half of our population, but research on women’s health has always been underfunded.”
The event was moderated by Melissa Schooley, a member of Fralin Biomedical Research Institute’s advisory board and vice president of global reimbursement, health policy, and government affairs for Abiomed, a health technology company. Schooley has been a leader in the Abiomed Women’s Initiative to drive awareness of heart failure risks unique to women and the need for broader screening and access to therapy, including therapy to promote heart recovery.
