Maternal Mental Health In Children

Maternal mental health (MMH) disorders occurs in one out of 10 women during pregnancy and within the first year after birth (Maternal Health, 2016). Current law in California states no requirement for perinatal or postpartum screening. AB 244 proposes to create a pilot program to increase the healthcare providers capacity and training to manage MMH conditions to serve pregnant and postpartum women up to one year after delivery (California Legislative Information, 2017). The purpose of this paper is to increase management of MMH disorders, support of bill AB 244 and Assemblymember Cristina Garcia’s opinion, how a bill becomes a law, and how nurses can impact current law.

Death and illnesses among women, infant, and child are preventable. In pregnancy, existing health risks can distinguish or prevent any future health problems for women and their children. According to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (2016), some high-risk factors that may consider are the following: hypertension, heart disease, diabetes, depression, genetic conditions, sexually transmitted diseases, tobacco and alcohol abuse, inadequate nutrition and unhealthy weight. By having this government Healthy 2020 initiative, factors that can affect the pregnancy and childbirth such as poverty,

According to Healthy People 2020, "Improving the well-being of mothers, infants, and children, is an important public health goal for the United States. Their well-being determines the health of the next generation and can help predict future public health challenges for families, communities, and the health care system" (Healthy People 2020, 2015). Infant mortality is defined as the death of an infant before his or her first birthday, while fetal mortality is defined as the intrauterine death of a fetus at any gestational age (MMRW, 2013 and MacDorman, Kirmeyer & Wilson, 2012). In the United States an estimated 13,000 fetal deaths occurred ≥ 28 weeks gestation making up 28% of all perinatal deaths in 2006, the latest year with available national data (Lee,

During the last two decades, researchers have intensified their efforts to expand the findings about paternal perinatal depression. The study conducted by Goodman in 2004, has shown that the postpartum depression’s prevalence among fathers varied from 1.2% to 25% in the population sample. Furthermore, these percentages rose to achieve 24 to 50 per cent when the paternal postpartum depression was associated with maternal postpartum depression. The literature review and studies asserted the detrimental consequences of paternal perinatal depression on child wellbeing and development (Children, C. on D., Parenting Practices, and the Heaslthy Development of, Medicine, I. of, Education, D. of B. and S. S. and, & Council, N. R., 2009) such as hyperactivity, emotional deregulations, behavioral problems (Davis, Davis, Freed, & Clark, 2011, van den Berg et al., 2009). These studies outlined the importance of prevention and intervention to foster the paternal perinatal depression issue, through developing screening, diagnosis and management guidelines.

There is increasing awareness of perinatal mental health as a public health issue. The Government is keen for midwives to further develop their role in public health. Midwives need to be adequately prepared to take on a more developed role in perinatal mental health if practice improvements are to be made. I am aware that death from psychiatric causes has been the leading cause of maternal death for the last few years. Although the most recent Confidential Enquiry into Maternal and Child Health indicated that this is no longer a leading cause, mental health problems before and after childbirth have a significant impact on the health of women, family relationships and children’s subsequent

Different researchers are trying to come up with different alternatives for the battle of depression in African American pregnant women. Kenyon,Hemming, Ingram, Dann, and MacArthur (2012) also conducting a research. They use a randomized controlled trail their research consensus of try to provide evidence that if support are offer to women that may have any social risk factors such as depression their attitudes about seeking out for help will improve. In this study the women were African American women that come from disadvantaged background.

According to Freeman et al., there is a significant association between socioeconomic status and depression that would suggest that the lower the socioeconomic status that someone comes from, the higher the prevalence of depression.3 Individuals living in poverty tend to have an increased prevalence of many chronic health conditions; however, according to a Gallup study done in 2011, based on the United States census, depression ranked top on the

As mental health in America is finally being addressed and more research is seen, it is important to look at the potential causes or correlations that lead to common diagnoses for patients. According to Brummelte and Galea (2010), “depression affects approximately 1 in 5 people, with the incidence being 2-3x higher in women than in men.” Postpartum depression (PPD), a subset of this debilitating disease, has an estimated prevalence rate of 13-19% with another estimated 50% that are undiagnosed (O’hara and McCabe, 2013). As a whole, it has the same symptoms as major depressive disorder but diagnosis occurs within 0-4 weeks of giving birth (American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Part of this lack of diagnosis is due to a multitude of healthcare

Identifying and treating physical health issues of the baby after birth is a natural part of follow-up care, but emotional well-being care of the mother generally is not. In an article titled “Panel Calls for Depression Screenings During and After Pregnancy”, author Pam Belluck argues that screening all expectant women should be recommended due to the high probability of mental health issues emerging afterwards. “The recommendation, expected to galvanize many more health providers to provide screening, comes in the wake of new evidence that maternal illness is more common than previously thought…” (2016). If more screening took place for women in the after care of pregnancy, there could be a reduction of pregnancy induced mental illnesses, since those affected would be identified earlier and

Perinatal depression is common in pregnancies whether regardless of race. Although, it is higher among African American low income women. Depression or anxiety during pregnancy, stressful recent life events, poor social support and a previous history of depression are all predictors of postpartum depression. (Stewart, D.E., Robertson, E., Dennis, G.L., Grace, S.L. & Wallington, T. 2003) Childcare stress, low self-esteem, maternal neuroticism, and difficult infant temperament are moderate predictors of postpartum depression.( Stewart, D.E., Robertson, E., Dennis, G.L., Grace, S.L. & Wallington, T. 2003) Obstetric and pregnancy complications, negative cognitive attributions, single marital status, poor relationship with partner, and lower socioeconomic status including income are small predicators of post-partum depression.

According to the CDC, current research shows that postpartum depression (PPD) is a complication that effects 1-8 women after they give birth. It is when the mother experiences depression after giving birth that is the result of hormone changes, adjustments to motherhood and fatigue. It is one of the most common diseases after the mother gives birth and is often underdiagnosed and overlooked. PPD can cause complication that not only affect the mother but also the baby by breaking the mother-infant bond. PPD can lead to a lack of social and emotional support to the baby during its critical period of life according to the CDC. There are experiences that put some women at higher risks for developing postpartum depression than others women. Some risk factors discussed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are low social supports, stress, culture, multiple births, and economic standings. Some of these risk factors are shown in case A which involves a Latino family that includes a father that is 31 years in age, mother who is 30 years of age, a 5-year-old son and an 8 -week old daughter. The main idea of this case was that the mother was starting to develop postpartum depression after the birth of her last daughter.

Sheryl Goodman, Kristen Williams, and Sona Dimidjian hypothesis in “Pregnant African American Women’s attitudes Towards Perinatal Depression Prevention” is that African American women are less likely to seek help for depression either after the birth of their child or right before the child is born specifically low income women. It states that although perinatal depression is common for women it is very high among African American women than any other race.

Perinatal mental illness is a collective term used to describe mental illnesses experienced by at least 10% of women during pregnancy and up until a year after birth (Hogg, 2014). Mental health is with paramount importance to the role of the midwife (National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE), 2014) as mental illness is a significant threat to the lives of mothers and can have a huge effect for their babies and families (Knight et al., 2015). Between 2009 and 2013 there were 161 maternal deaths related to mental health problems, one of the leading causes of maternal mortality in the United Kingdom (UK) (Knight et al., 2015). The main types of mental health disorders, signs and symptoms along with possible treatments

Postpartum depression is the most common psychological complexity that occurs after childbirth (Bakhshizadeh, 2013). This form of depression has been reported to be as high as 20% (Asltoghiria, 2012). The mother will begin to experience postpartum depression between the birth of the infant and 6 to 8 weeks later (Bhati, 2015). Depending on the person, the typical length of postpartum depression ranges anywhere from two weeks to two years in length (Posmontier, 2010). It is thought that postpartum depression affects mothers of multiples at a greater incidence than mothers whom birth just one child, and the chance increases with the number of children in a multiple birth. Evidence shows that the older the mother’s age at the time of birth, shows there is no notable increase in the risk of being diagnosed with postpartum depression. Another factor that is thought to have an influence on the diagnosis of postpartum depression is income within the household. A study shows that as income goes down, the risk of having

The authors then focused on the findings related to interpretation of the data at the existential level. These findings revealed that because these mothers put on a “mask” in order to appear strong and fit as mothers, they subsequently buried their true feelings of despair (Blegen et al, 2012). These mothers struggled immensely with how they wanted to feel, which was caring and strong, with how they actually felt which was often sad and empty (Blegen et al, 2012). Although, they desperately wanted to be mothers whom were fully present in every aspect, they struggled to continually put on this “mask” in order to not allow their children to see the real pain they were in (Blegen et al, 2012). Through this constant “act”, the mothers were emotionally drained and unable to truly connect with their children or reveal their true self or feelings (Blegen et al, 2012).