eMedicineLive

Mental disorders in the year after giving birth are common in women worldwide. Women, who experience their partners as welcoming the pregnancy had better mental health post delivery.

Mental depression in women after labor has adverse consequences on women’s health and their families. It is widely agreed that in addition to treatment, there is need for a broader approach to address the problem that includes the prevention of these mental disorders. Postpartum depression also known as the postnatal depression is a type of mental disorder that can occur in women post childbirth. These mental disorders are diverse in nature and severity.

A recent study talks about the common mental disorders in women after the first child birth. This study aims to formulate a clinically effective, feasible, innovative and universally acceptable method to prevent common mental disorders in women after childbirth including depression, anxiety and adjustment disorders. The findings confirm that there are four major risk factors for depression after childbirth including personal psychiatric history, coincidental adverse life events, poor quality of relationship with the partner, and insufficient social support. It was also found that there are a few other risk factors viz., poor physical health and adverse experiences during the delivery; but these factors as they say have less reliable evidence.

There is consistent evidence that the quality of relationship with the intimate partner is associated with mental health in women post childbirth. Women, who experience their partners as welcoming the pregnancy had better mood as opposed to women who are experiencing dissatisfaction in the relationship. Also any form of emotional and physical abuse, or in general gender-based violence is a central determinant of depression and anxiety in women.

Several methods were employed to investigate why existing prevention strategies had not been successful. Community based interventions that educate the parents have been implemented with high success rates. For example ‘What Were We Thinking!’ a novel, highly structured universally implementable program designed to address the increased needs of parents of first newborns has shown positive mental health outcomes. WWWT Intervention is a postnatal mental health intervention which contributes to the primary post delivery health care routine for mothers, fathers and their newborns. The intervention was also pilot-tested with small groups of mothers and fathers and their first newborns.To avoid the social stigma surrounding mental health care programs it is designed as a community based routine health care program, and not one in the mental health sector; also it uses an educational approach and non-psychiatric language. The WWWT Intervention program is a promising intervention for the primary prevention of mental health disorders in first time mothers of infants.

In conclusion, community based educational approach can lower the incidene of postnatal mental disorders. 

Reference:
Development of a universal psycho-educational intervention to prevent common postpartum mental disorders in primiparous women: a multiple method approach - a study by Heather J Rowe and Jane RW Fisher carried out at the Centre for Women's Health Gender and Society, University of Melbourne
For More Information, please visit: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2931475/?tool=pmcentrez  

Disclaimer: This article is written by a non-medical professional.