Emma snuggled on her mother’s lap as she listened to Dr. Seuss’ “I am Cindy Lou-Who,” pointing at everything on the page – from Cindy’s gravity-defying hair to the teapot. They’re cozy on the floor with Emma’s toys scattered everywhere.
It’s a special moment for mom Emily Fields. The Fairfield County resident has come a long way over the past year-and-a-half.
Soon after Emma’s birth, Fields was unable to sleep. She struggled to eat. And she realized she couldn’t be around her little girl.
“So I called my mom and I was like ‘Can you come home? I don’t know what’s wrong,’” Fields said. “I was just anxious. The water’s up to here; I was just treading the water.”
Fields was on maternity leave as an elementary school teacher, but didn’t want to return to the classroom.
“I was like, I can’t be around any other children. I don’t even want to be around my own,” she said.
Fields was showing symptoms of postpartum depression — a common but serious mental health condition experienced by about 1 in 8 women after giving birth, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Symptoms can include sadness, anxiety, guilt, worthlessness, a feeling of emptiness and suicidal ideation. Left untreated, it poses serious risk to mother and child.
Cases of anxiety and depression – including postpartum depression – are on the rise. But getting an appointment with a mental health provider can be an uphill battle given the shortage of providers in Connecticut. Connecticut meets less than a quarter of patient-psychiatrist ratios in mental health care deserts, according to independent data from the nonprofit Inseparable.
In response, the state is giving more front-line pregnancy and postpartum health care providers access to postpartum mental health care. By placing this access at the fingertips of a wider range of medical professionals – pediatricians, primary care physicians, OB-GYNs and psychiatrists – organizers hope to help more new mothers access psychiatric treatment.
At the center of this effort is a hotline staffed by superspecialists in postpartum mental health. And it’s become a lifeline for new mothers facing postpartum depression.
ACCESS Mental Health and Substance Use for Moms was established in 2023 and is funded by the state of Connecticut through the next two years. The number of moms served rose from 67 in the first year to 368 in 2025 – more than a fivefold increase.
Dr. Ariadna Forray, a reproductive psychiatrist at the Yale School of Medicine, leads the psychiatry team at ACCESS Mental Health for Moms.
Forray is working to dismantle the narrative surrounding social expectations around pregnancy, birthing and motherhood. Most people view this as a common process that women go through, and that they get through it all on their own – whether it is transitioning to a new stage of life, breastfeeding, return to work or postpartum depression.
“That’s a bit of a fallacy,” she said. “Just because we’ve done it doesn’t mean it’s easy.”
‘Finding some happiness’
This wasn’t the first time Fields had experienced depression. She said she knew something was wrong after her oldest child, Elliott, was born. But her husband was working from home at the time – it was during the COVID-19 pandemic – and she felt supported.
“If there was no COVID, could I have done all this on my own?” she said. “I don’t think I could have.”
Now she had two kids and a husband away at work.
When Fields called her mother in panic, not knowing what to do, her mom urged her to call her gynecologist. She was quickly prescribed Zurzuvae over the phone – it’s the first oral drug approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for postpartum depression, and it’s fast-acting.
“But it didn’t work,” Fields said.
After two weeks, her OB-GYN prescribed Zoloft.
“And then you kind of have to wait [for it to work],” Fields said. “He was like: ‘Until you find a therapist we are going to monitor you.’”
Fields, a Norwalk resident, lives in a mental health care desert. Connecticut has 50 federally-designated places that don’t have enough mental health providers to meet demand – they’re called Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs), according to 2025 data from the Health and Human Services Administration.
When she couldn’t take it another minute longer, Fields told her husband to drive her to the ER. There, at Stamford Hospital, she was referred to in-house psychiatrist Dr. Marcos Christian Michael.
Michael is one of more than 400 physicians in Connecticut who signed up to the ACCESS program – the state-funded service is free of cost to doctors and their patients. The hotline is staffed real-time by a team of reproductive psychiatrists at Yale who specialize in treating postpartum depression.
Michael is trained in geriatric psychiatry, so he called the hotline with Fields’ consent. He walked the hotline team clinician through Fields’ demographics – age, ethnicity, address, contact details – and was then immediately transferred to a reproductive psychiatrist. The two doctors discussed Fields’ unsuccessful treatment, and Michael indicated he was thinking about starting another antidepressant, and asked for feedback.
Finding the right medication can get more complicated when post-pregnancy hormones come into the mix.
It took this level of collaboration and expertise to come up with something that helped Fields: venlafaxine, a serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI). Reuptake inhibitors allow more chemicals – like serotonin and norepinephrine – to remain in the brain to help with regulating mood.
“That’s the medicine that ended up, I felt, I don’t know … curing it … but finding some happiness,” Fields said.
Within days, ACCESS got Fields into an outpatient therapy program. Not because the team was able to increase the supply of providers; instead, they leaned into their working knowledge of providers across the state – who is accepting new patients, what insurance they accept and whether they have perinatal expertise.
“Rather than a mom or provider calling down a static list — which can be time-consuming and often unsuccessful — our resource and referral team does that outreach in real time, confirming availability and narrowing options to those that are actually viable at that moment,” said Elizabeth Garrigan of Carelon Behavioral Health, which is contracted by the state to staff the hotline with resource specialists and capture usage data. Carleon has more than 150,000 providers across the U.S., and connects moms with resources and offers referrals.
“In short, it’s less about increasing supply and more about navigating the existing system efficiently,” she said.
‘The secret sauce’
Yale’s Forray said “the secret sauce” was staying with the mom after making those connections.
“Our resource specialist follows up. It’s like ‘How did that appointment go? Did it go well?’ Right? That’s what's really unique,” she said. “It’s not just handing someone a paper here, some referrals. It's actually working with mom to find the right fit.”
And as word got out about the ACCESS program, the number of obstetrics providers who signed up rose from 335 in 2023 to more than 430 in 2025.
The program is also working to address socio-economic disparities, so moms receive additional support if needed – like working around insurance, access to a diaper bank and help with food and housing.
“It’s been a really good partnership between us who see patients in the community, and helped me identify some of our community services,” said Michael of Stamford Hospital.
Women’s socioeconomic well-being is linked to postpartum mental health. One study found that women with low socioeconomic status were 11 times more likely to be clinically depressed after giving birth, while another study found that new mothers living in disadvantaged neighborhoods were at higher risk for postpartum depression.
There are also significant racial disparities in maternal mortality rates. Black women are three times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy complications, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
ACCESS organizers hope their effort addresses these disparities.
The ACCESS program also aims to help doctors like Michael with free monthly training to treat postpartum mood disorders.
“They have this clinical conversation series that they do every month specifically for reproductive health,” said Michael, who signed up to participate because Stamford Health has a growing need for psychiatric expertise surrounding maternal health.
The ACCESS program builds on the success of Beacon’s Massachusetts Child Psychiatry Access Program (MCPAP) for Moms launched in 2014. And it seeks to fill some of the gap in access to maternal health care after the closure of several birthing units across Connecticut.
The program’s success stems from a range of offerings beyond the hotline. For instance, a toolkit on substance use disorder and perinatal mental health listed on its website are for providers with varying levels of knowledge in treating postpartum depression.
“We do get mental health providers that call – so psychiatrists, or psychiatrist APRNs that are prescribing, and they might not be familiar with these tools,” said Forray, who leads the program’s psychiatry team. “While obstetricians might be [familiar with this aspect] – they might not be familiar with the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. That’s the benefit of the program; we can really provide specific resources for the perinatal population to all providers.”
A mother’s journey
Back in Norwalk, Emily Fields is playing with her daughter and son in the living room.
After getting help from the ACCESS hotline, Fields continues to stay on the antidepressant venlafaxine.
The helpline’s helped her return to work. After not being able to be around kids, Fields is – once again – in the classroom, teaching middle school.
The helpline’s also helping her bond with Emma, who stacked building blocks and looked up at the sound of her mother’s voice.
“All I ever wanted was a little girl,” Fields said, speaking tenderly to Emma. “Then I got you, and I couldn’t even hang out with you.
“But now we can be friends.”
Resources
ACCESS Mental Health for Moms is free to providers and patients regardless of insurance status. Medical providers who are in need of immediate perinatal psychiatric consultation can access the perinatal psychiatry team at Yale by calling 1-833-978-6667, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
If you are pregnant or are a new parent and are feeling overwhelmed, sad, or anxious and need someone to talk to, the National Maternal Mental Health Hotline can help – 24/7 – call or text 1-833-852-6262. If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal ideation, call 211, Connecticut’s 24/7 crisis hotline. When in an immediate crisis, call 911.
About this story
This story is part of the Mental Health Parity Collaborative. Connecticut Public is among selected newsrooms across the U.S. working with The Carter Center to cover stories on mental health care access and inequities.
