Mental health helplines for newborn parents around the world
In the past, new parents were more likely to be surrounded by a village of support. These days, with our more isolated lifestyles, new parents typically need to put intentional effort into building their village. This can be a challenge even under ideal circumstances, but building a village while grappling with anxiety or depression is so much harder!
One of the tricky things about mental health is that many symptoms can be similar to typical new parent stuff, like having difficulty sleeping, crying all the time and worrying about your baby. It’s sometimes hard to tell when you need extra help.
Add the fact that maternal depression is more common at four years postpartum than at any time during the first twelve months, and you can see how important it is to check in with your mental health, now and at all stages of motherhood, and indeed life.
Assess your mental health
We can recommend a good resource to start with: PANDA. No, we’re not recommending you spend time with an unfairly cute bear, we’re talking about the PANDA that stands for Perinatal Anxiety & Depression Australia. No matter where they live in the world, parents can complete a short mental health checklist on the PANDA website and find out if what they’re experiencing could be a reason to seek help.
People can do this checklist during parenthood, pregnancy, as a father or non-birthing partner or on behalf of a loved one too.
If you’re a postnatal doula or other professional supporting newborn parents, share this resource with your clients. While it’s out of scope for postnatal doulas to assess mental health or diagnose conditions, we should certainly provide our clients with helpful tools like this self-assessment quiz.
Depending on your results, you might want to reach out for specialised mental health support. Sometimes it can be hard to know who to ask or where to go, and this can be a real barrier for overwhelmed new parents.
Find a mental health helpline in your country
We’ve put together a directory of mental health helplines around the world. Whether you’re a new parent, a postnatal doula looking for links to share with clients, or a supportive friend or family member, we hope this is helpful.
Some helplines are for general use, while others are targeted towards specific demographics or situations.
We haven’t listed out every single country — just the ones where most of our students and graduates are from. If you don’t see your country here, you can find links to other directories at the bottom of the page that may include mental health helplines for your country.
Jump to:
United Kingdom
Find a local NHS urgent mental health helpline (England only)
Breathing Space (Scotland)
Don’t see your country listed above? Try one of these links
According to the World Health Organization, there is a limited availability of helplines and mental health services in many African countries, particularly in rural areas. If you visit the Progress Guide website and scroll down to click on one of the 54 African countries listed, you can find out if mental health resources are available.
You can also try these links (they include Asian and European resources too):
Most European countries can access these services:
Create your own local resource list
If you're a postpartum professional, it's a great idea to put together a list of local mental health resources tailored to the families you support. This not only empowers your clients but also builds trust and confidence in your care. In the Postpartum Education and Care Professional Training, we guide you step-by-step in creating a personalised resource list as part of your postpartum toolkit.
While not all of your clients will need to access a mental health helpline, just knowing the resources exist can give new parents peace of mind— a priceless resource in itself.
