Understanding patient pathways to Mother and Baby Units: a longitudinal retrospective service evaluation in the UK (Dirik, Protti, 2025)

Nikolina Jovanović, Žan Lep, Giles Berrisford, Aysegul Dirik, Julia Barber, Bukola Kelani, Olivia Protti

Health and Social Care Delivery Research (2025)

Available online at this link

Plain language summary Mother and Baby Units are special psychiatric facilities designed to provide inpatient care for women dealing with serious mental health problems during pregnancy or after giving birth. In recent years, there have been attempts to improve these services. However, we still do not have much information about how patients get to these units. In this study, we wanted to learn how women reach Mother and Baby Units in the United Kingdom. We studied three different locations: Birmingham, London and Nottingham. We reviewed the electronic records of 198 women who used Mother and Baby Units in these locations during 2019. Here is what we found: Most patients were admitted to the Mother and Baby Unit after giving birth, and they were usually admitted in an emergency. On average, they stayed in the Unit for about 6 weeks. We found differences between services in how patients were admitted, how long they stayed, the reasons they were admitted and how long it took them to reach the Unit. When we looked at what affects a patient’s journey to the Mother and Baby Unit, we found that ethnicity played an important role. For example, more Asian women were admitted in emergencies, and black women went through fewer services before reaching the Unit. The study sheds light on how patients access Mother and Baby Units, showing that the process varies by location. It also found that ethnicity plays a role. For example, black patients had fewer steps to reach the Unit compared to White British patients. This could mean direct access to care or a lack of community-based support. More research is needed to determine whether this is due to clinical decisions or gaps in the care system.