Fear, trauma or loss during the perinatal period can have a huge impact on a person’s mental health and well-being as well as on their partners and family.
AFLoaT service provides support to women and birthing people in Surrey with moderate to severe mental health difficulties as a result of fear, trauma or loss during the maternity experience.
Our team combines professionals from across maternity and psychological services including psychologists, specialist midwives and mental health practitioners.
How we work
The service team will assess your referral to see if you would benefit from the service. If they think the service is not quite right for your situation, they will refer you to a more appropriate service within the area.
We have a team of professionals that includes psychologists, specialist midwives and mental health practitioners. We also work closely with maternity units in Ashford and St Peter’s Hospital, East Surrey Hospital, Epsom Hospital and Royal Surrey County Hospital.
Support offered includes:
- Assessment, advice and treatment
- Pre-conception support e.g. preparing and planning for future pregnancies
- Psychological interventions, including one-to-one support, groups and support for birth trauma, tokophobia and perinatal loss.
- Working with partners and families, where it is appropriate Group interventions and signposting for peer support
- Providing information, coping strategies and signposting
Who is the service for?
- You must be referred to the service by a health professional (including your GP, health visitor or midwife) and meet the following criteria:
- woman or birthing person over 18 years of age registered with a GP in Surrey Heartlands moderate-severe/complex mental health difficulties arising from a birth trauma, tokophobia, pregnancy loss or baby loss (within 28 days of delivery), including PTSD, complex or prolonged grief or recurrent loss
- referrals must be made at least 8 weeks after the experience but can be for trauma or loss that happened some years ago
- previous interventions have been accessed through IAPT or support within a maternity unit, such as birth reflections, but further interventions are required, or have not undertaken IAPT or birth reflection support but have clinical needs most appropriately addressed by a specialist service
- open to, and willing to engage in a form of psychological intervention offered by the service
Advice for professionals
Access to the service is by professional referral only. To refer someone to the service, please use the referral form.