Where to Find Perinatal Mental Health Support in North Carolina

Understanding Your Options for Therapy, Support, and Connection

If you're pregnant or postpartum and feeling overwhelmed, anxious, or just not like yourself, you are absolutely not alone. So many new parents feel this way, even if no one around them is saying it out loud. And while there are more conversations about perinatal mental health than there used to be, actually finding care that feels supportive, informed, and safe can still be really hard.

Let’s talk about what help actually looks like, and how to find it if you live in, or visit, North Carolina.

What Is Perinatal Mental Health?

Perinatal mental health is about your emotional and psychological well-being during pregnancy and in the years after giving birth. It's not just about "postpartum depression" – though that’s real and valid. It also includes:

• Anxiety, panic, or racing thoughts

• Feeling flat or numb

• Anger or irritability that feels uncharacteristic

• Grieving your old identity or struggling with the new one

• Intrusive thoughts that feel scary and shameful

• Trauma from birth or fertility experiences
  

These experiences are way more common than people think. And they are treatable.

What Kind of Help Is Out There?

Support doesn’t have to look one specific way. You might start with weekly therapy. You might need more. Here are some of the paths people take:

• One-on-one therapy with a therapist trained in perinatal mental health

• Medication (yes, there are safe options, and untreated symptoms carry risks too)

• Group support where you can be with others who get it

• Intensive Outpatient Programs (IOP) if things feel especially heavy or unmanageable

• Couples or family therapy, because this impacts the whole household
  

Finding Support in North Carolina

Depending on where you live, you might not have someone local who truly specializes in this kind of care. That doesn’t mean you're out of options.

At Anchor Perinatal, we serve individuals across North Carolina through virtual care—including individual therapy, couples therapy and our perinatal Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP). As long as you're physically in North Carolina during your sessions, you're eligible for care. This means that even if you're in a rural area or living in cities like Charlotte, Wilmington, Greensboro, Asheville, Durham, or Fayetteville, you can access specialized, evidence-based care designed specifically for the perinatal period.

We recognize that not every community has local providers with this training. That’s why our model is built to meet you where you are—because you deserve care that truly understands this season of life. Although you have not found the right provider yet, that doesn’t mean the support isn’t out there. Many of the most specialized services aren’t local to every town—but they’re still accessible statewide through virtual care.

When Should You Reach Out?

If you’ve been wondering whether what you’re feeling is "normal" during your fertility, pregnancy or postpartum journey, or if you should talk to someone for support—that’s reason enough to reach out.

Perinatal mental health challenges don’t have to meet a certain threshold to be valid.

If something feels off, you deserve support.

Reach out if:

• You’re crying more than usual or can’t feel anything at all

• You’re not sleeping (even when the baby sleeps) or not eating

• You feel episodes of rage or shut down and don’t know why

• You’re scared by your own thoughts

• You just feel like something isn’t right
  

Anchor Perinatal Wellness: North Carolina's Dedicated Perinatal IOP

At Anchor, we offer free walk-in screenings, individual and family therapy, and group-based IOP care to folks across North Carolina. And our Intensive Outpatient Program is specifically built for the perinatal period. Whether you're dealing with postpartum depression, pregnancy-related anxiety, or just feeling unmoored by this life change—you're not alone, and you're not too much.

If you don’t know where to begin, that’s okay. We will help you figure it out.

If you need care, we’re here.

Schedule a Free Screening