“I grew up in the small southern town of Crowley, Louisiana. After graduating High School, I enlisted in the Coast Guard to see the world. I was stationed in Hawaii for 3 years at a small boat station, then became a USCG Dental Technician Petty Officer 3rd Class. My final duty station was at the Department of Transportation in Washington, DC. Prior to leaving the USCG, I became a Massage Therapist. It was during my 5 year stint as a Massage Therapist, that I rediscovered my heart for nursing. I graduated college, became a Registered Nurse, and a mom at 30 years old. After working as a Mother-Baby and Pediatric RN, I took a chance on Labor & Delivery and found my niche in nursing!  Eight years later, I am still working as a full-time night shift L&D RN.

Being a Labor & Delivery RN is one of the most exhilarating & frustrating experiences. Over the years, I have gained invaluable frontline skills, instincts, and knowledge about calming a woman’s fear in the throes of labor and empowering her to embrace motherhood. I am proud of these abilities and love sharing the birth experience with women and their families, but in all honesty the realization of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) prevalence among mothers and its detrimental impact on families has dramatically shifted my perception and purpose. My heart breaks knowing that over 8 years and countless births, 1 in 7 of those pregnant women and new mothers that I cared for inevitably went home suffering in silence from a PMAD. Maybe some of them already knew they were high risk and had support in place, but for many they went home with an infant and the expectation that their mental health was secondary in motherhood. As I continue to bear witness to the subtle shifts that seem ‘normal’ after childbirth (lack of sleep, lack of self-care, lack of support) that directly contributes to this needless suffering, I have found my life’s work is to destigmatize PMADs, while alleviating the unnecessary suffering of these women and their families.

As a frontline nurse, I believe that we as a profession are key to a long overdue paradigm shift in perinatal mental health. We are well-positioned and equipped to assess the mental health of pregnant women and mothers in the acute care setting, provide them with the first aid emotional support they need, and connect them to the appropriate perinatal mental healthcare providers and resources in their community.”Kisha Semenuk is a mama to two young boys. And as a night shift nurse who recently obtained her Masters of Science in Nursing, Kisha completed her Nursing Capstone Project on the knowledge gap she identified when researching perinatal mood and anxiety disorders and effective postpartum depression screening using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) among frontline perinatal care providers (OBs,Perinatal RNs, & Mother-Baby RNs).Through her deeper research, Kisha became acutely aware that as a frontline RN she was bearing witness to the silent suffering of so many women and families. Nothing was being done about it on the frontline and Kisha wanted to take action to make lifesaving changes.

She began actively networking with frontline OBs and built a team of fellow perinatal mental health champions who helped her to compile and organize an online resource which will allow women and their families to easily locate specialized, local professionals, support groups and treatment facilities. This resource will be kept at the fingertips of frontline nurses who are often the first healthcare professional to recognize the emergence of a perinatal mood disorder.Kisha’s mission with the DMV (DC-Maryland-VA) Perinatal Mental Health Resource Guide is to develop, disseminate, and maintain a comprehensive, up-to-date, regional directory of specialized mental health providers, support groups, advocacy organizations, and other relevant clinical resources pertaining to perinatal mental health. This directory will assist providers, patients, and their families with obtaining specialized mental health evaluation and treatment during pregnancy and postpartum.

How amazing would it be if we could create a guide like this for every city in our country? I am so energized and extremely appreciative of all the blood, sweat and tears she has poured into this project and I cannot wait to see it take off and bring help and relief to so many families who in the past did not know where to turn.

I applaud Kisha’s dedication and drive for instituting change in an area all of us here at Postpartum Progress care deeply about.

{The DC-MD-VA (DMV) Perinatal Mental Health (PMH) Resource Guide is launching online by November 1 and is a result of an ongoing collaboration between the DMV PMH Resource Guide Team and existing DMV-based PMH Professionals and Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders (PMADs) survivor support network. Team members include: Kisha Semenuk, L&D RN and MSN; Aimee Danielson, Director of MedStar’s Georgetown University Hospital Women’s Mental Health Program; Lynne McIntyre, the Mid-Atlantic Postpartum Support International Coordinator/Mary’s Center Maternal Mental Health Program Coordinator; Helen Conway, Psychology Major (C’15) Summer Intern; and Dina Karellas, L&D RN and Nurse Informatics Graduate Student; in addition to Adrienne Griffen, Founder of Postpartum Support Virginia (PSVa), and Nadia Monroe, Founder of Postpartum Support Maryland (PSMd).}