New Legislation Proposed
This legislative session has seen mental health, particularly children’s mental health, emerge as a pressing issue. Another bill currently being debated would change the ways in which Minnesota deals with the issue of maternal depression and provides for the care of new and expectant mothers and their babies. This bill, HF1047/SF582, would do the following:

  • Attempt to reduce racial health disparities by reviewing the cross-cultural effectiveness of and making necessary changes to the information provided to new and expectant mothers on postpartum depression
  • Include serious mental health disorders, which would include maternal depression, as a targeted condition for eligibility to receive family home visiting
  • Improve screening for maternal depression by mandating continuing education on maternal depression including its impact on children for all licensed professionals who care for women and children (mental health professionals, doctors, nurses, social workers, etc.).
  • Increase eligibility for mothers to receive medical assistance from 60 days to 1 year postpartum (note: HF1047 would increase eligibility to 2 years postpartum)
  • Increase eligibility for the child to receive medical assistance without a redetermination requirement from their 1st birthday to their 2nd birthday
  • Create a multidisciplinary task force on maternal depression and develop a plan to reduce the prevalence and impact of this condition on families and children

Mental Health as a Family Issue
This bill would provide increased training to professionals about the importance of sharing information and screening new and expectant mothers while attempting to ensure that all mothers and young children can gain health and mental health services when needed. Further and perhaps more importantly, it highlights maternal depression as a serious but treatable mental health condition that can impact child and family well-being.
It is critically important that we begin to look at mental health issues not as individual problems, but as issues that affect the entire family system. When a mother or father is dealing with a serious mental health condition, the child and family system must also cope. Too often this coping is done in ways that further damage the family’s functioning and potentially lead to parental withdrawal and neglect. If we begin to think about mental illness as a family issue, we will begin to both treat the individual’s needs and keep the family growing and developing in positive ways. Treating the family as a system provides support to children and parents which subsequently results in family stabilization, thereby reducing the chances that children may experience severe neglect and preventing or ending involvement with the child welfare system.
Further Information
For further information on maternal depression, visit: