Pregnancy and postpartum mental health
Dr Sabrina Pozzi Langhi is a GP with clinical experience in women’s health, based in Perth, Western Australia. She provides comprehensive mental health assessment, diagnosis, and management through long consultations.
Perinatal Mental Health GP in Perth
Pregnancy, birth and the postpartum period can bring significant emotional, physical and psychological changes. For some people, this time is affected by anxiety, low mood, intrusive thoughts, birth trauma, grief, loss, sleep disruption, or difficulty feeling like themselves.
Dr Sabrina Pozzi Langhi provides perinatal mental health GP support in Perth, with longer consultations designed to understand the full clinical picture and develop a practical, coordinated care plan.
Sabrina consults at Elaris House in West Leederville, Perth.
Who this is for
This page is for people who are pregnant, postpartum, planning pregnancy, or recovering from a difficult pregnancy or birth experience, and who are experiencing emotional or mental health difficulties.
This may include pregnancy-related anxiety, postpartum depression, intrusive thoughts, distress after birth trauma, perinatal loss, miscarriage, infertility, or concerns about bonding and day-to-day functioning.
What perinatal mental health difficulties can look like
Pregnancy and postpartum mental health symptoms vary from person to person. They often cluster into a few common patterns:
Low mood or loss of enjoyment: feeling sad, tearful, hopeless, lonely, guilty, exhausted, or disconnected from things that usually matter.
Anxiety or panic: excessive worry, restlessness, panic attacks, racing heart, chest tightness, shortness of breath, or a strong fear that something bad will happen.
Fear related to pregnancy or birth: ongoing distress about pregnancy, childbirth, future pregnancies, or medical care, especially after a difficult or traumatic experience.
Intrusive thoughts or checking behaviours: unwanted, distressing thoughts or images, often followed by reassurance-seeking, checking, or repeated behaviours.
Bonding and functioning changes: feeling disconnected, struggling with self-care, withdrawing from others, difficulty concentrating, agitation, or increased conflict at home.
Safety concerns: thoughts of harm to self or others, or concern about immediate safety.
How Sabrina’s approach helps
Sabrina’s approach is thorough, calm and collaborative. Longer appointments allow time to understand not only symptoms, but also sleep, physical health, medication history, pregnancy or postpartum context, supports at home, previous mental health history and current risks.
The aim is to develop a practical care plan that makes sense for the person’s situation. This may include counselling strategies, a Mental Health Care Plan, medication review within scope, a Sensitive Birth Plan where relevant, and coordination with other clinicians involved in care.
For health professionals
Sabrina may be helpful to involve when there is perinatal depression or anxiety that is persistent, severe, functionally impairing, complex, or only partially responding to first-line support.
Referral may also be appropriate where there are significant intrusive thoughts, panic symptoms, sleep disruption, medication questions, comorbidity such as ADHD, ASD or bipolar disorder, or risk concerns where additional assessment and care coordination would help.
Examples of referral considerations include:
High EPDS or ANRQ scores
Persistent or severe perinatal depression or anxiety
Significant intrusive thoughts, panic symptoms, or sleep disruption
Diagnostic complexity or comorbidity
Medication review before or during pregnancy
Risk concerns requiring additional assessment and coordination
Urgent support
This page provides information about planned, non-emergency perinatal mental health care. For crisis, emergency, safety concerns, or medico-legal/report boundaries, please refer to the Model of Care page.
If there is immediate risk of harm to yourself, your baby, your child, or another person, call 000 or attend the nearest emergency department.
Appointments
If you are pregnant, postpartum, planning pregnancy, or recovering from a difficult pregnancy or birth experience and would like support, you can contact the practice to ask about appointment availability.