World Maternal Mental Health Day was celebrated at Barrie’s City Hall rotunda as dozens of expectant and current moms brought their kids to show support for each other and their mental health.
The annual worldwide event is held on the first Wednesday of May in order to be close to not only Mother’s Day but also Mental Health Week. The Barrie Stroller Walk was the city’s way of getting involved and while many tables were set up inside city hall with information and support guides for moms locally, the event started at Centennial Beach and saw the parade of strollers walk to its 70 Collier Street destination. Leading the way was Jaime Charlebois, who is not only the perinatal mood disorder coordinator at Orillia Soldier’s Memorial Hospital and throughout the region, but she also organized the event this morning; an event she says is very needed in our area.
“One in five women are affected either in their pregnancy or one year following and our rates in north Simcoe/Muskoka are seven percent higher than the provincial average,” said Charlebois. “So our women are highly affected and yet we don’t have any direct services.”
While no one has yet clearly pinpointed why the local average is higher, Charlebois thinks that it has to do with some higher rates of poverty, the rural-urban mix that makes travel and navigation more difficult and also isolation from the lack of transportation in such a large land-mass. Charlebois praised the other mental health initiatives that have recently made news in the region but says helping the people who are usually the ones directing the minds of the next generation is now key.
“We have a very well established adult and now a child and youth mental health facility which certainly takes some of the burden off of parents, but we’re never going to have an impact on both of those systems unless we look at preconception and perinatal,” said Charlebois. “So our moms and new families are determining the health of our new generations and we need to provide them more support.”
