Pregnant Kate Middleton beams with delight as she meets new mums and their babies
A SMILING Kate Middleton showed off her growing baby bump while meeting new mums and their babies at a hospital maternity ward.
The Duchess of Cambridge, whose third baby is due in April, was visiting a specialist mother and baby unit at Bethlem Royal Hospital.
Sporting a baby blue overcoat by Seraphine Kate, who is due to give birth in April, kept dry under an umbrella as she arrived in pouring rain at the Maurice Wohl Clinical Neuroscience Institute.
Here she heard about the impact that mental health illnesses can have on new mothers.
She was told that at least 20 percent of women are affected by mental health problems in their first year after the birth.
If untreated, it could have a long lasting impact on the family.
She also raised a chuckle among the scientists who told her about an experimental therapy in which an avatar is used to help a person with schizophrenia cope with hearing voices.
She said "as in the movie Avatar" before being told about the therapy which involves a face-to-face talk between a person with schizophrenia and an avatar representing their auditory hallucination.
It may help reduce symptoms when given along with usual treatment.
They explained it was not character in the Hollywood film and Kate responded by saying "oh how interesting" when told of the value of this work.
Professor Louise Howard, a professor of women's mental health, said: "She was interested in the fact that we look at the whole range of issues including PTSD and self-harm.
"She was interested in understanding the whole breadth of the issues and how to make people more robust."
The institute is part of the university's efforts to fast-track new treatments to patients affected by conditions like Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia and epilepsy.
The work undertaken by the academics at the leading teaching and research university is likely to find practical use helping to treat mothers at the Bethlem Royal Hospital.
Kate, visited a laboratory at the institute, and received a briefing on its work in perinatal research - study surrounding the time of a child's birth - before meeting senior academics conducting research in perinatal psychiatry.
MOST READ IN NEWS
Kate went on to visit the Bethlem Royal Hopsital's mother and baby unit to see how research done at the unit is applied when treating real mums.
The visits are part of the duchess's desire to continue to develop her understanding of the challenges and issues surrounding maternal mental health.
We pay for your stories! Do you have a story for The Sun Online news team? Email us at [email protected] or call 0207 782 4368 . We pay for videos too. Click here to upload yours.