• Roundtable 1: Understanding Maternal Mental Health and Stigma
• Roundtable 2: Maternal Mental Health Support Programs and Solutions to Overcome Stigma
Roundtable 1 Overview
Hosted by the NYS Office of Mental Health and Behavioral Health News, this first roundtable will provide attendees with a focused learning experience on perinatal mental health. Participants will gain a foundational understanding of common perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs), including prevalence rates and real-world examples illustrating their impact. The session will also examine various forms of mental health stigma—such as public, self, and structural stigma—as they relate to maternal mental health, with concrete examples from clinical and community settings. Finally, attendees will leave equipped with practical strategies for reducing stigma in maternal mental health environments and improving access to care and support services for birthing persons.
Roundtable Moderator (click for details)
With over 25 years of experience working with marginalized communities and families, Paige Bellenbaum, LCSW, PMH-C, has held senior leadership roles at organizations committed to improving social determinants of health including The Partnership for the Homeless, Habitat for Humanity, Settlement Housing Fund, and The Motherhood Center of New York.
After struggling with severe postpartum depression and anxiety following her son’s birth, Paige became a passionate advocate for maternal mental health, using her own lived experience as a tool for change. She drafted legislation championed by New York State Senator Liz Krueger, urging New York birthing hospitals to educate and screen for PMADs—a bill signed into law in 2014.
In 2015, Paige joined forces with a nationally recognized Reproductive Psychiatrist and opened The Motherhood Center. This clinical treatment facility is the first and only New York State Office of Mental Health Article-31 Perinatal Partial Hospital Program (Day Program) for mothers and birthing people experiencing moderate to severe perinatal mood and anxiety disorders. The Motherhood Center also provides perinatal outpatient treatment including therapy and medication management, support groups, and maternal mental health training and education.
As Founding Director and Chief External Relations Officer, Paige has overseen multiple departments including Human Resources, admissions, marketing, education, external partnerships, and provider relations, all while facilitating clinical support groups and providing psychotherapy to perinatal patients in the outpatient program and Day Program. Paige recently stepped down from her original role at The Motherhood Center and continues to serve the organization as the Education and Government Relations Consultant. In her current role, Paige works with government agencies, hospitals, nonprofits, and academic institutions to incorporate PMAD best practices, training, and education into operational frameworks. This work includes the NYC Department of Health and Mental Health, the NYC Administration for Children’s Services, and the New York State Office of Mental Health Maternal Mortality and Morbidity Advisory Council.
Additionally, she is an Advanced Perinatal Psychotherapy Trainer and faculty member with Postpartum Support International, and an Adjunct Professor at Silberman School of Social Work, Hunter College. Paige is recognized as a perinatal mental health subject matter expert and has appeared on the Today Show, Good Morning America, NPR, PBS NewsHour, and in Fortune, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal.
Roundtable Panelists (click for details)
Dr. Kristina Deligiannidis is the Director of Women’s Behavioral Health at Zucker Hillside Hospital, Northwell Health and a Professor of Psychiatry, Molecular Medicine and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell. As Director, she leads a clinical/translational research program and advises on policies and services promoting women’s behavioral health at Northwell Health. Dr. Deligiannidis additionally serves as the Medical Director for Reproductive Psychiatry for the perinatal psychiatry access program, Project TEACH, funded by the NY State Office of Mental Health. As a reproductive psychiatrist, she has expertise in treating women with mood and anxiety disorders linked to the menstrual cycle, perinatal and perimenopausal periods.
Dr. Deligiannidis is a nationally recognized leader in the field of perinatal depression and in novel therapeutics research. Her research program includes a focus in psychoneuroendocrinology, particularly neurosteroids and hormones, and multimodal neuroimaging in women’s behavioral health. Dr. Deligiannidis’s research is supported by NIH R01, foundation and industry funding. Her efforts have been nationally recognized with many awards for research and medical student and resident teaching. She has published numerous peer-reviewed manuscripts and has given over 200 oral presentations/research posters at local, national and international scientific conferences. Her recent publications have been in high impact journals including the Lancet, Lancet Psychiatry, JAMA Psychiatry, American Journal of Psychiatry, Neuropsychopharmacology and Molecular Psychiatry. Her research has been covered by major media outlets including CNN, the Associated Press, NPR All Things Considered, NPR 1A, the Boston Globe, CBS Sunday Morning, the Canadian Broadcasting Company, the Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, Good Morning America and others.
Dr. Deligiannidis actively contributes to national scientific committees and gives scientific presentations nationally and internationally. She is a current Board of Directors member for the Marcé of North America, past Council member of the Society of Biological Psychiatry, past Board of Directors member for the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology and currently is a full member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology. Dr. Deligiannidis also serves as a reviewer on over 20 scientific journals and on Editorial Boards of national and international journals. She serves as a federal grant reviewer for the Center for Scientific Review at NIH. Locally she serves on steering committees in both the Departments of Obstetrics & Gynecology and Psychiatry at Long Island Jewish Medical Center and Zucker Hillside Hospital and at the Katz Institute for Women’s Health on Long Island.
Dr. Deligiannidis received her medical degree from and completed her psychiatry residency and chief residency in psychopharmacology research at the University of Massachusetts Medical School (2009). Prior to and during medical school she trained in neuroscience research at the National Institutes of Health. After residency she completed additional research training in behavioral endocrinology and experimental therapeutics at the NIH and in neuroimaging at the Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at Massachusetts General Hospital.
Kriti Lodha is a seasoned marketing and technology executive with a track record for building and scaling multi-million-dollar businesses, brands, and teams across the SaaS and CPG industries. She’s owned P&L responsibility and led award-winning marketing campaigns for household brands like Mr. Clean and Gillette at Procter & Gamble. She has also served as a senior marketing and customer experience (CX) leader at Toast, a restaurant technology platform, where she helped Toast not only survive, but also thrive beyond the pandemic and a successful unicorn Initial Public Offering (IPO).
Kriti was motivated to turn her pain into purpose after silently battling and surviving postpartum psychosis in the pandemic: to raise awareness, remove the shackles of shame and stigma, and mobilize resources around perinatal mental health at both a local and national level. She is deeply committed to tackle the maternal mental health crisis head-on and advocate for all moms and birthing people across all communities – to shift the conversation to timely treatment over trauma and tragedy.
Today, Kriti serves on the Board of Directors at Postpartum Support International, where she helps shape and advance PSI’s mission on a global scale, as well as volunteers her time as peer support group leader for postpartum psychosis survivors. Kriti also works as Executive Advisor at Mass General Hospital’s Center for Women’s Mental Health, where she combines the power of marketing, strategy, and technology to accelerate the Center’s reach and impact across both patients and providers.
Looking ahead, Kriti is in the early stages of marrying her lived experience and professional expertise to build new models of care that expand access to specialized treatment for families navigating severe perinatal mental health challenges in Massachusetts. She firmly believes that no one should suffer – or heal – in shame or silence as she once did. Kriti hopes to role model the importance of advocacy, representation, and service for her 4-year-old daughter Naina and her South Asian community. In her (very limited) spare time, Kriti loves to cook, sing, and travel.
Brittain Mahaffey, PhD (She/Her) is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Health at Stony Brook Medicine, where she serves as the Director of the Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Program and leads the Women’s Mental Health Integration Program. She is dual-board-certified in DBT and Perinatal Mental Health Counseling, bringing a rare combination of evidence-based therapeutic expertise and perinatal specialization. Her research focuses on understanding risk factors for perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) and developing tailored interventions to reduce perinatal stress and improve outcomes during this critical life stage. Clinically, she integrates DBT approaches into perinatal mental health care, working collaboratively across ambulatory and reproductive health settings to provide comprehensive, integrated support to pregnant and postpartum individuals and women across the lifespan.
Lauren M. Osborne, MD, graduated from Weill Cornell Medical College and received her psychiatric training at Columbia University/New York State Psychiatric Institute. She completed both clinical and research fellowships in women’s mental health, and is an expert on the diagnosis and treatment of mood and anxiety disorders during pregnancy, the postpartum, the premenstrual period, and perimenopause. Dr. Osborne is an Associate Professor of OB-GYN and of Psychiatry and serves as the Vice Chair of Clinical Research in the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at Weill Cornell Medicine. Her research on perinatal mental illness focuses on models of care and on biological mechanisms and biomarkers, with a focus on neurosteroids and the immune system, and she runs the PIPPI Lab – Psychoneuroimmunology in Pregnancy and Postpartum – at Weill Cornell. Dr. Osborne’s clinical work consists of collaborative care for perinatal mental health within OB/GYN. She is also the President-Elect of Marcé of North America; founder and chair of the National Curriculum in Reproductive Psychiatry, a free web-based standardized curriculum; and an editor of The APA Textbook of Women’s Reproductive Mental Health. Her work has been supported by the Brain and Behavior Foundation, the Doris Duke Foundation, the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology, the Department of Defense, the NIMH, and the NICHD.
Dr. Ashanda Saint Jean, a graduate of The Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education/CUNY Medical School, holds a doctorate in medicine from New York Medical College. After completing her residency training at Danbury Hospital/Yale New-Haven affiliate in Danbury, Connecticut, she became a board-certified OB/GYN Physician.
Over the past two decades, Dr. Saint Jean has dedicated her career to providing quality healthcare to underrepresented minority women in urban New York City and rural upstate New York. Her commitment to excellence in healthcare delivery is rooted in a patient-centered approach that encompasses comprehensive care, mental health, and addressing social determinants of health.
Dr. Saint Jean’s expertise has led her to various roles, including former Chair of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Health Alliance Hospitals of the Hudson Valley, a part of the Westchester Medical Center Health Network. She also serves as an Associate Professor in the Department of OB/GYN. Additionally, she is a senior Maternal Health consultant for the New York City Department of Health, served on the Ulster County Board of Health, and held leadership positions within the ACOG (American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists) District II (New York State).
Dr. Saint Jean’s dedication to women’s health, inclusivity, representation, and addressing maternal mortality and morbidity extends beyond her professional life. She is a delegate for the ACOG national DEI delegation, representing New York State, and a physician member for the New York State Coalition for Doula Access. Furthermore, she has been appointed to the New York State Maternal Taskforce, New York State Maternal Mortality Review Board and co-chairs the New York City Maternal Mortality Review Board.
