Maternal Mental Health Now

What Maternal Mental Health Now Is

Maternal Mental Health NOW is a nonprofit organization based in Los Angeles County, founded in 2007 by Kimberly Wong, who experienced severe postpartum depression after the birth of her daughter and struggled to find informed help despite having good healthcare and family support. The organization's mission is to remove barriers to the prevention, screening, and treatment of prenatal and postpartum depression in Los Angeles County. It serves new and expectant families, healthcare providers, and the broader community by offering a range of resources and programs designed to make perinatal mental health care more accessible and culturally responsive. The organization emphasizes working with historically oppressed, marginalized, and under-resourced parents who face the most significant barriers to timely, informed, and culturally appropriate care.

What You Actually Get

Maternal Mental Health NOW operates 3 main programs for parents and families. The resource directory, accessible through their website, helps people in Los Angeles County and beyond find mental health services and support tailored to their situation. The organization also runs Sana Sana, a peer-support program that connects parents with lived experience of perinatal mental health challenges to provide community-based support and understanding. For those seeking self-guided support, the organization offers My Care, a self-help app designed for people who want to understand and manage perinatal depression and anxiety during pregnancy and in the first year postpartum.

In addition to direct services, Maternal Mental Health NOW provides comprehensive online training for healthcare providers across multiple disciplines. Their training options are available both live and self-paced, covering topics including queer and trans perinatal mental health, sex and perinatal mental health, pediatrics and perinatal mental health screening, mental health impacts of miscarriage and infant loss, psychopharmacology, and the intersection of cultural identity with perinatal mental health care. The faculty includes licensed professionals with credentials like PhD, LMFT, MD, PsyD, LPCC, BC-DMT, and PMH-C certifications. These trainings are designed for healthcare professionals including therapists, clinical psychologists, social workers, psychiatrists, OB/GYNs, pediatricians, nurses, midwives, doulas, and community health workers.

The organization's training curriculum emphasizes culturally relevant approaches that center racial, gender, and health justice. Their website indicates they're committed to supporting a diverse range of multidisciplinary healthcare professionals including birth workers, community health workers, and lactation consultants, creating a network of experts who can provide ongoing support and resources to improve perinatal mental health outcomes across Los Angeles County.

What the Pages Prove

The captured pages do not publish consumer pricing for Maternal Mental Health NOW's direct services to parents. However, the organization does list training costs for healthcare providers. For example, their "What To Know and How to Screen for Perinatal Mental Health" course costs $44.99 for a one-hour training plus readings that includes instruction on using screening tools like the PHQ9 and EPDS. The site describes the course audience as healthcare professionals working with families in the perinatal period and says participants learn to "name 2 reasons why screening for PMADs is important," "effectively utilize at least one screening tool," and "describe advantages and challenges in the screening process."

The organization states that "depression and anxiety during pregnancy and postpartum affect all family members," positioning perinatal mental health as a family issue, not just a maternal one. The site emphasizes that addressing mental health during the perinatal period (from pre-conception through 1 year postpartum) should be as routine as screening for gestational diabetes. Maternal Mental Health NOW operates primarily in Los Angeles County. The site's own "Help Is Available" note directs people inside the county to its Resource Directory and, outside Los Angeles County, to Postpartum Support International or its listed line, 1-800-944-4773.

The pages describe the organization's structure as "a volunteer network of community leaders and partners, medical professionals and researchers, survivors and advocates." They indicate the organization works directly with healthcare providers, health systems, state and local government, and emphasize having "a vast network of perinatal health experts" offering ongoing support. The site does not publish specific numbers of therapists, counselors, or other providers affiliated with the organization.

What Maternal Mental Health NOW Does Not Say

The organization's website does not publish individual profiles of licensed therapists or counselors available for direct mental health services, nor does it disclose whether My Care includes connection to licensed providers or is purely self-guided. The pricing page for parents using the resource directory, peer-support program, or My Care app is not published; the site only states that these services are available for families. The organization does not disclose whether these services are available outside Los Angeles County, whether they are covered by insurance, or what specific conditions the peer-support program and app address beyond the general category of perinatal depression and anxiety.

The pages do not detail how to access My Care, how often you can use it, whether it requires a quiz or account setup to see content, or what devices it runs on. Similarly, they do not describe how Sana Sana peer-support program works in practice, how often members can connect, whether facilitators are professionals or peer-led, or what qualifications peer supporters have. The website does not publish testimonials or outcome data specific to these three services.

Who It Fits and Who It Does Not

Maternal Mental Health NOW is designed for expectant and postpartum parents in Los Angeles County seeking community resources, peer connection, and education about perinatal mental health. It is well-suited for parents who prefer self-guided learning alongside professional training and those seeking culturally responsive, trauma-informed support that centers racial and gender justice. It serves healthcare providers and organizations wanting to deepen their knowledge of perinatal mental health screening, diagnosis, and treatment across diverse populations.

The service is not a direct mental health provider for individual therapy or psychiatric care. It is not a crisis service; its own site does not name a crisis line, instead pointing people outside Los Angeles County to Postpartum Support International at 1-800-944-4773 and people inside the county to its Resource Directory. It is not designed for families outside Los Angeles County seeking direct mental health treatment, nor is it an online therapy platform or psychiatric prescribing service. Parents needing immediate individual therapy, medication management, or diagnosis should look elsewhere; Maternal Mental Health NOW functions as a resource hub and education provider rather than a clinical mental health service.