CARDIFF — A Cardiff mother has called for more integrated mental health and diabetes services after severe post-natal depression during the 2020 Covid lockdown led her to stop taking insulin and resulted in multiple hospital admissions. Naomi Durham, who has type 1 diabetes, first noticed a deterioration in her mental health following the birth of her second daughter in 2020.

"I spent much of lockdown feeling completely numb," Durham said. She said her health visitor contacted her GP on her behalf after seeing she needed more support.

Durham's GP prescribed increasingly higher doses of anti-depressant medication over the phone until she was on the maximum dosage. She never saw the GP in person and there was never any suggestion of perinatal mental health support.

At its worst, her mental state led to her not taking the insulin needed to manage her type 1 diabetes. She developed diabetic ketoacidosis, a life-threatening condition that turned her blood acidic due to the lack of insulin, and had multiple hospital admissions as a result.

She spent two years in and out of hospital, which led her to stop her nursing course and raised concerns about her ability to look after her children. She said having to advocate for herself repeatedly added to her struggle, and that more holistic assessments and appropriate signposting to help were needed.

"The diabetes team would say it was mental health, and the mental health team would say it was a diabetes problem," she said. "Those two worlds collide because there's no services set up for that."

She said seeking peer support networks, including online communities and single parent groups, alongside charity services, helped her recover and resume her studies.

People with diabetes are twice as likely to have depression, according to Diabetes UK, which added that similarities in symptoms between the two conditions can make it more difficult for people to get necessary support. Cardiff and Vale health board said it had a perinatal mental health service offering "specialist, safe, effective and compassionate care." The health board said it encouraged Durham to contact its concerns team.