Today is International Women's Day. So let's talk about a significant health problem for the female population: postpartum depression.

We know that postpartum depression and other perinatal mood and anxiety disorders are common. We know they are fully treatable. We know that there are significant adverse impacts on both mother and baby when these illnesses are not treated. YET, only 15% of sufferers receive treatment in the US. (God knows how much higher that number is in other countries.)

Despite all the talk, it seems to me that postpartum depression is rarely on the women’s health radar screen, and when it is, it’s always at the bottom of the to-do list.

Just take a look at America's Healthy People 2020. Improving the identification and treatment of postpartum depression is not an objective of this major public health initiative. You won’t find PPD under the topic “Mental Health & Mental Disorders” or under the topic “Maternal, Infant & Child Health” (MICH). In fact, if you look up the subtopic of “postpartum health & behavior,” the only objectives listed are to reduce postpartum relapse of smoking (MICH-18) and to increase the proportion of women who attend a postpartum care visit (MICH-19). Seriously?! Or consider the widely-reported-on National Report Card on Women’s Health, in which there is no mention of perinatal mental health or postpartum depression at all, and only one (very flimsy) indicator of women’s mental health as a whole.

Did you know that specialized training in reproductive psychiatry is almost non-existent? Currently there is only one fellowship offered at U.S. medical schools for women’s mental health. Did you know that in areas of poverty or rural locations, women have limited access to psychiatric services or support groups of any kind, much less people who have received training on perinatal mood and anxiety disorders? Did you know that you can count on one hand the number of specialized inpatient units in the United States for the treatment of women with severe perinatal mood and anxiety disorders, including postpartum psychosis?

New families are created every day in the United States and we are not doing nearly enough to ensure they are starting off on the right foot when it comes to emotional health. There are a lot of people trying. There are a lot of disparate programs. But we're not doing enough, and we're not doing enough together. That's not okay with me.

And that's what I have to say on International Women's Day.