Thank you, Madam Chair.
I'll be sharing my time with Sonia Sidhu.
Thank you, Minister Bennett, for being here with us today in order to answer some of our questions on this very important topic.
Many witnesses spoke to us about perinatal mental health. A mother whose mental health suffers will pass that suffering on to her children. There's a link between moms who suffer from postpartum depression, or depression at any point during the perinatal stage, and kids who suffer from depression. These kids eventually turn into adolescents who suffer from depression, and then into adults who suffer from depression. Part of breaking the cycle means taking care of the moms who are in these situations.
Dr. Simone Vigod made a few recommendations. According to Dr. Vigod, perinatal mental illness affects 20% of Canadian pregnancies. That is about 80,000 women per year. She recommended the funding of “training of perinatal health care and lay providers in short-term structured perinatal mental health psychotherapies, so that perinatal mental health care would be integrated.” She also recommended funding “the training of personnel for new specialized perinatal mental health teams for underserved regions”, making specialized care more accessible for all Canadians regardless of where they live.
Minister, I was wondering if you support these funding recommendations and concrete measures to improve perinatal mental health care. Is the federal government doing anything to bring these forward?