Perinatal Crisis Response Teams

This emerging model, designed by Victoria, integrates behavioral health, perinatal expertise, emergency response, and crisis intervention to improve coordinated responses to maternal and perinatal crises while strengthening collaboration between healthcare and public safety systems. Perinatal crisis could be perinatal mental health (perinatal depression, perinatal psychosis, perinatal PTSD, perinatal anxiety, etc.), pregnancy or infant loss (miscarriage, stillbirth, neonatal death, and fetal death diagnosis), or other maternal emergencies, inclusive of perinatal trauma events, such as perinatal intimate partner violence.

Connect

For presentation or training requests about this model and collaboration on implementation, please use the contact form here.

Team Model

Depending on model and circumstances, the team is designed to be housed within the county EMS department or local hospital and deploy alongside EMS, police officers, fire departments, or other first responders.

The team itself might consist of:

  • Licensed therapist or social worker

  • Birth or full spectrum doula

  • EMS Professional trained in this model as primary first responder, police officer trainer in this model as secondary first responder (dependent upon scenario)

  • Chaplain or spiritual care provider (optional)

On-Scene Functions

  • Help support emotional stabilization

  • Suicide risk identification and navigation

  • Supporting family members

  • Connecting to mental health and grief resources

  • Coordinating with EMS and hospitals, and law enforcement or DFCS when necessary

  • Contacting support persons and assisting with childcare coordination

Follow-Up Phase (ideally 1-4 weeks)

  • Grief and survivor support groups

  • PMAD referrals

  • Lactation support

  • Partner & child support services

  • Family adjustment

  • Memorial resources

Resilience

Community Resilience

The Perinatal Crisis Response Teams would also be designed to provide community education around the following:

  • Perinatal Mental Health: PMADs, suicide awareness, recognizing birth trauma, paternal mental health and partner support, perinatal crisis education

  • Pregnancy Loss: miscarriage & infant loss education, PMADs, supporting grieving families, memorial-making

  • Childbirth Education: Fertility support, high-risk pregnancies, birth & labor support, abortion support, partner support, lactation education, postpartum support, newborn care, pregnancy & infant loss education

  • Perinatal Crisis Education: When to call EMS, warning signs, high-risk pregnancies, postpartum complications

  • Community Perinatal Education: Intimate partner violence & safety, navigating unhoused systems while pregnant, perinatal substance use, navigating trafficking systems while pregnant or postpartum

  • Healthcare Professionals & Doula Education: Recognizing perinatal crisis, recognizing perinatal trauma, navigating legal systems & DFCS cases, supporting marginalized communities

  • Perinatal Community Crisis & Disaster Preparedness: Emergency birth kits, natural disaster preparedness, evacuation planning, medication planning

First Responder Benefit

Besides distributing the services provided from first responders more efficiently, the perinatal crisis response team could also work with first responder agencies to provide:

  • Occupational grief and vicarious trauma support

  • PTSD education and resources

  • Peer support referrals