JOIN MHA OF GEORGIA IN COMMEMORATING MATERNAL MENTAL HEALTH AWARENESS WEEK, FEBRUARY 3-9, 2013! 

Due to the efforts of Mental Health America of Georgia's Project Healthy Moms initiative and  the Georgia Coalition on Maternal Mental Health, Governor Nathan Deal has declared February 3-9, 2013 as Georgia's official "Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week". During this week, we ask healthcare professionals and compassionate individuals who care about Georgia's mothers to ask the question: what can we do better in Georgia to provide for the mental health of our mothers? The awareness week will serve as a means to kick off the efforts of the Coalition, and advocate for the future mental health of Georgia's mothers. 

Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week Activities: 

• Join us at the Georgia Capitol on February 6, 2013 at 3:00pm to advocate for making maternal mental health a priority in our state! 
• For everything you want to know about maternal mental health and more, join us at Northside Hospital's cafeteria (1000 Johnson Ferry Road, Atlanta, GA 30342) on February 7, 2013, 11:00am-2:00pm where we'll be promoting Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week. 
• Project Healthy Moms is launching the Warmline, a peer-support and resource linkage service for mothers throughout the state of Georgia, in Spanish! 
• E-toolkits with information about screening and resources for maternal mental illness are going out to county health departments and home visiting programs throughout Georgia.
• Project Healthy Moms is finalizing our partnership with the March of Dimes NICU program, which will help inform new mothers, whose babies are in the NICU, about mental health resources in Georgia.  
• An article about maternal mental health, written by the Program Manager of Project Healthy Moms at MHA of Georgia, will be published in the Healthy Mothers, Healthy Babies February newsletter. 

For more information on Maternal Mental Health Awareness Week, click here to visit our website, or contact Liz at liz@mhageorgia.org. 

MENTAL HEALTH FOR MOMS: 8 WAYS TO BE HAPPIER

While our greatest hope is for our children to turn into happy adults, most moms grit their teeth a fair amount on the road there. After hustling their kids off to soccer practice, shopping for dinner and hunting down the perfect kindergarten, they are left with little inspiration to model the one thing they most wish for their children: happiness. It's not that they don't want to be happy. It's more a question of how to fit it into their schedule. Read on for some practical tips from parenting experts on how to move "be happy" to the top of your to-do list.

• Be yourself
• Pencil in solitude
• Practice "slow family time"
• Put your girlfriends back on the schedule
• Create a weekly no-work day
• Share your passion with your kids
• Conquer clutter
• Outsource it

TALK THERAPY BOOSTS RESPONSE TO ANTIDEPRESSANTS

DID YOU KNOW?

New laboratory research on rodents suggests an elevated stress hormone in adolescence may be linked to severe mental illness in adulthood. Johns Hopkins researchers noted that adolescence is a critical time for brain development. During this stage, a hormone abundance could potentially cause genetic changes which could result in severe mental illness among individuals. To read more, click here. 

New research suggests that drinking sweetened beverages, especially diet drinks, is  associated with an increased risk of depression in adults, while drinking coffee was tied to a slightly lower risk. People who drank more than 4 cans or cups per day of soda were 30% more likely to develop depression than those who drank no soda. To continue reading about this interesting study, click here. 

A large new study suggests that, in just 10 years, the number of children diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, rose dramatically. Overall, about 5% of nearly 843,000 kids ages 5-11 were diagnosed between 2001 and 2010 with the condition that can cause impulsive behavior and trouble concentrating. But during that time, rates of new ADHD diagnoses skyrocketed 24%- jumping from 2.5% in 2001 to 3.1% in 2010. To read the rest of this article, click here.