A NEW counselling project for pregnant women and new mums - without a long waiting list - has launched in Bradford.

The Manningham-based Millan Centre celebrated the launch of group therapy, individual sessions and mental health assessments with a Q&A.

The women’s questions and experiences will be shared with the NHS and social care teams to help improve health services and make them more culturally sensitive.

Women heard from the Millan Centre’s chairperson Elizabeth Hellmich MBE; Saliha Sadiq, the centre’s vice chair and mental health director; Sasha Butt, head of mental health and wellbeing at Bradford district and Craven Health & Care Partnership; Dr Parsa Mushtaq, a working gynaecologist, and Rukeya Miah, a deputy associate director of nursing, senior midwife and advocate.

Saliha said: “Some ladies shared their past traumas. The ones who were pregnant shared questions related to the fear of vaccination, they’re getting anxiety.

"Some ladies said ‘we have fear about labour and what’s going to happen’.

"Some ladies said because of the language we don’t know what services are out there and when we do reach out there’s long waiting lists.

“So many were happy that we set this initiative up.

“We will be getting referrals from GPs, NHS and social care.”

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