Title of presentation: Maternal Mental Health: why it matters for children’s development.

​Dr Alain Gregoire initially began his postgraduate training in obstetrics, but on seeing that women with perinatal mental illness were the most ill yet least well cared for, he switched to train in Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry and Maudsley Hospital in London. For the past 30 years he has been a Consultant Specialist Perinatal Psychiatrist, during which time he has set up and led multiple specialist perinatal mental health services, and won UK Hospital Doctor of the year and RCPsych Team of the Year awards. He was a member of the NICE Guideline Development Group for Antenatal and Postnatal Mental Health, and has contributed extensively to the development of policy, strategy, guidance and clinical services in the area of parental and infant mental health in the UK and abroad.

He was the founder and is President of the UK Maternal Mental Health Alliance, a coalition of over 120 national organisations committed to improving maternal mental health care and outcomes for mothers and their infants, and which has successfully campaigned for over £1bn new government funding for perinatal mental health services across the UK. He works as an advisor to the Princess of Wales, who recently became MMHA patron. He founded the Global Alliance for Maternal Mental Health, which has similar aims worldwide, with over 25 international member organisations, and has informed the development of successful alliances in many other countries and world regions.
Alain has worked extensively in radio, television and film, including the multiple award winning BBC documentary ‘My Baby Psychosis and Me’, and is a presenter for the multiple award winning BBC TV programme ‘Trust Me I’m a Doctor’.