2.05 Dr Clare Dolman - Postpartum care planning and navigating living with Bipolar through pregnancy and family building.

Following her own diagnosis of Bipolar Clare and her husband decided to have a family and in doing so suffered with an episode of post-partum psychosis following the birth of her first born. Clare has worked extensively with specialists and Bipolar UK to work specifically about how to support and navigate this very difficult period of life. GP’s are under informed to support in the way they need to and because such little research historically has been done in this area there is a serious lack of information to offer birthing people the support they need.

This really is a specialised area of perinatal mental health and Clare has been instrumental in putting so much work into this area to support those living with Bipolar to navigate this.

Clare was also part of workshop where she met women who had had to have a termination for maternal mental health during their pregnancies due to the fact they live with Bipolar.

Some people only ever receive their first experience of having Bipolar following a diagnosis of postpartum psychosis which is believed to be triggered by the hormonal changes that are experienced during pregnancy and birth.

Clare has a series of webinars that are available on the Bipolar UK website and Youtube channel to help and support those that are thinking of pursuing pregnancy/family building/parenting and for those that are going through perimenopause and menopause.

Clare Dolman PhD

Trustee Maternal Mental Health Alliance: maternalmentalhealthalliance.org

Trustee APP - Action on Postpartum Psychosis www.app-network.org

Ambassador Bipolar UK: www.bipolaruk.org

Please find support and resources on our website www.bipolaruk.org

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