New and soon-to-be parents who are struggling with anxiety or depression will be now be to access free mental health support in Wagga.
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The Gidget Foundation today opens a service in Wagga which will use government funding to provide up to 10 free counselling sessions for parents suffering perinatal distress.
Wagga mother Olivia Mullan said the Gidget House in Sydney helped her through a dark period in the first few months of her son's life.
It was 2015 when Ms Mullan, a nurse and patient manager at Wagga Base Hospital, gave birth to her first and only child.
Her son was about six weeks old when she took him to Sydney to visit her parents and some of her siblings, where Ms Mullan began to obsess over sudden infant death syndrome.
"At the start I just thought it was normal mother anxiety. But then I got on a loop," she said.
"It got on a random loop in my head and I couldn't stop thinking about it. And I didn't talk to anyone about it."
About one-in-five new mums and one-in-10 new dads in Australia will suffer from perinatal depression and anxiety.
Ms Mullan's anxiety spiralled so badly she was hospitalised in Sydney for three weeks, in a dedicated inpatient ward for mothers and babies.
"If it was here in Wagga then unfortunately I would have been admitted to the mental health unit and my baby would have been taken away from me, because we don't have any inpatient mother and baby units," she said.
Ms Mullan, who now has a happy and healthy son, will volunteer as a "Gidget Angel" with the Wagga service.
Wagga's Gidget House will be be run out of the Tresillian Family Care Centre with $56,260 provided from the Murrumbidgee Primary Health Network, as well as additional state government funding.
Gidget Foundation chief executive officer Arabella Gibson said Wagga's Gidget House would "work with the demand".
"We'll start small but grow big - that's the aim anyway," she said.
NSW minister for mental health, regional youth and women Bronnie Taylor said the state government had taken "real initiative" in backing Tresillian and Gidget Foundation services.
"What we've actually focused on in the last budget was rural and regional Tresillian centres and then we've partnered with Gidget," she said.
"So this is a sound investment, but it's not about the dollars and the cents.
"What it's actually about is placing people in these communities so they can serve their communities really well."
Catie McLeod
Catie is a reporter at The Daily Advertiser covering health and Wagga City Council. You can contact her on c.mcleod@dailyadvertiser.com.au or 0475 819 651.
Catie is a reporter at The Daily Advertiser covering health and Wagga City Council. You can contact her on c.mcleod@dailyadvertiser.com.au or 0475 819 651.
