Maternal Mental Health Service (Silver Birch Hub)

We are a free NHS support service working with women, birthing people, and families to offer psychological and emotional support.

Our service has therapists, psychologists, assistant psychologists, specialist midwives and peer support workers. Our role is to identify distress that has come from your maternity, neonatal or reproductive journey.

We work to support trauma, lossand fear around pregnancy and the maternity setting.

This service is available to women and birthing people who live in Cheshire, Halton, Knowsley, Liverpool, Sefton, St Helens, Warrington and Wirral and who have experienced distress, loss or trauma during pregnancy and birth.

It doesn’t matter how long ago you experienced this distress, loss or trauma – you can still access our service.

Psychological therapy and support for areas such as:

• Birth trauma
• Extreme fear of childbirth
• Miscarriage and stillbirth
• Loss in neonatal setting or neonatal period
• Loss of a baby to social care in the maternity setting following birth.

We can offer a choice of interventions for these difficulties, and we work really closely with other services to make sure you can receive the right care, in the right place, at the right time.

Our dedicated specialist perinatal midwives work to support the reduction of distress and to improve your wellbeing in pregnancy.

We work in partnership with your midwife, health visitor, GP and anyone else involved in your care. It would be typical for us to share essential information with those partners about your care.

We will always discuss this with you in your appointments before sharing any information about you.

At your first appointment we will aim to understand a little bit more about how things have been for you and how we can help you.

This will involve talking with a practitioner about some parts of pregnancy and your life, before and after becoming a parent (if this is something that applies to you).

You can be referred to our service by any healthcare professional such as midwives, health visitors, GPs, social workers, therapists or counsellors.

Many of our appointments will be virtual, using video technology, or we might call you on the phone.

We will also work to offer face to face appointments where this feels safe and appropriate. If you feel worried about any of this then you can talk to us.

Referring to the service is simple and easy. If you’d prefer to talk things through, we are happy to meet you at one of our virtual MDT meetings as follows:

Liverpool Friday 1.00pm (Fortnightly)

Wirral: Monday 12.00 noon (Fortnightly)

Knowsley and St Helens: Tuesdays 11.00am (Weekly)

Sefton: Fridays 1pm to 2pm (Fortnightly)

Cheshire: Mondays 9.30am to 10.30am (Weekly)

Warrington and Halton: Thursdays 9.30am to 10.30am (Weekly)

Referring to our service is simple and easy, please download our referral form. Please make sure that you read our eligibility criteria prior to making a referral.

There is a ‘no wrong door’ approach when people are referred to us and we work with other professionals to provide high quality personalised care.

The service takes a multi-agency approach to supporting women and birthing people, with professionals from mental health and midwifery working in collaboration to provide a holistic offer to service users.

We hold virtual multidisciplinary meetings should you wish to discuss a referral with us in more detail.

For more information, visit our professionals page.

Example referral form.

“The service has been life changing for me. The positive impact it has had on my life and outlook on life is something I never thought was possible. The care and support received by Anna and the team was second to none and I can’t thank them enough.”

“Thank you so much to the team at Silver Birch, especially Carmel who supported me throughout my journey with the service. From our first encounter I knew I was in the right hands. Having experienced a very traumatic first birth and a subsequent  recent termination for medical reasons it had a massive impact on my pregnancy and caused a lot of anxiety and distress. I was able to talk about my traumas in a very safe place with no judgement and validation of how I feel. The love and care received by the Silver Birch team has been invaluable.”

“I am so thankful for the Silver Birch. I felt the support I had was like wrap around care, that consistently helped me process my anxiety and fears through each stage of pregnancy in a safe place I felt listened to and seen I cannot thank Silver Birch enough.”