Pregnant African American Women 's Attitudes Toward Perinatal Depression Prevention

In the 2006 book Postpartum Mood and Anxiety Disorders: A Clinician’s Guide authored by Beck and Driscoll, states certain risk factors such as socioeconomic status, ethnicity, education level and self-esteem can also play a role in the development of this depression.

Borra, C., Iacovou, M., & Sevilla, A. (2015). New Evidence on Breastfeeding and Postpartum Depression: The Importance of Understanding Women 's Intentions. Maternal & Child Health Journal, 19(4), 897-907. doi:10.1007/s10995-014-1591-z

I believe that mental health is not well discussed, or known, in today’s culture. People could struggle with mental health daily and others could have no idea. There are many different types of mental health issues, and one specific issue that is rarely discussed is postpartum depression. Postpartum depression is a specific type of depression that new mothers can experience after the birth of their child. (Schacter, Gilbert, Wegner, Nock, 2012). The changing hormones a mother can experience directly after birth cause this condition. Postpartum depression can cause a mother to feel sad, guilty, and even experience thoughts of suicide. Postpartum depression may be discussed in the text, but the causes and even the treatments are not.

Twenty-four mother-infant dyads completed all aspects of the study. Of those 24, 18 were Caucasian, 22 were married, eight of them had an annual family income of $50,000 to $74,999, and seven had an annual family income of over $100,000. Also 16 of the participating mothers had a graduate degree. Not only is the sample size very small, but the demographics of the mothers is greatly disproportionate. With the majority of mothers being caucasian, educated, middle class, married women, the sample size does not accurately represent the majority of the population who lives in relative poverty and cannot afford to seek help. About half of the mothers had a history of depression and were taking or had just started taking antidepressant medication when they first enrolled. Considering the size of the sample, all the mothers should have been either prescription drug users, or not, but not both. Prescription drug treatment for any depression significantly changes perceptions of mood, skewing the results, and there is not enough women in the study to make a concise prognosis.

Depression and anxiety could have a major effect on the physical body. It is critical to find an effective way to decrease the amount of depression in African American communities in order for a quick recovery and remission. There are a few options for women with depression in terms of treatment. There are many different types of medication that could be used to to fight the depression or one could use therapy. Therapy heals certain problems that a patient may have that caused the depression. More funding to the study of African American women with depression may lead to more discoveries for the different types of

This is especially true in women of childbearing age (Lee King, Duan, & Amaro, 2015). The dyad of mother and baby presents a special vulnerable population within the Appalachian region. Women, who experience physical, psychological or sexual abuse during childhood, are at an increased risk to have post-partum depression, especially if SUD co-exists (Ross & Dennis, 2009). This dyad of mother and child in an impoverished setting with limited resources to health care, despite access to insurance, results in a perpetual disparity that results in preventable mortality from a variety of disease processes (Lane et al.,

The thought of feeling embarrassed or having one’s pride get in the way can prevent a lot. One of the greatest barriers keeping people of color from asking or getting treatment for depression is the thought of being looked down on and not trusting health institutions. There is a history of trauma and victimization experienced by people of color. Experiments have been done to prove these negative attitudes many black people have about health care. Experiments such as the Tuskegee syphilis experiment have caused a cultural mistrust for people of color toward the U.S. healthcare system. The Tuskegee syphilis experiment was a study done between 1932 and 1972 by the U.S. Public Health Service studying the natural progression of untreated syphilis in African-American men under the facade of receiving free health care from the United States government. Such things done to people of color in the past hinder them in present times to seek for

Segre, A. R. (n.d.). Perinatal Depression: A Review of U.S. Legislation and Law. Retrieved from www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3725295/

The third piece for evidence is a book solely based on minorities and health disparities. This book discusses racial and cultural issues in relation to medical disparities, this is not generalized amongst racial groups, the text dives into specifics. I plan to use this text to discuss the different perspectives on race and health disparities in various cultural groups. My two final pieces of evidence will be used to provide the audience with real world examples of how race causes health disparities in modern America. The first article is about how black women face health disparities, the article does dive into women’s healthcare, “Black women are three times more likely to experience an unintended pregnancy than white women. These higher rates in unexpected pregnancy reflect a disparity in access to quality affordable contraceptive services along with other quality women’s health care services” (1). The second article is geared towards ethic groups over the age of 65 who are impacted by health disparities in the form of

There are many studies that have addressed pregnant women’s preferences and perception of help-seeking barriers for perinatal depression prevention interventions and they have showed that African American women are less likely to seek professional help than white pregnant women. Because there are no studies to date that have focused specifically on ethnic or racial minority women’s attitudes toward depression prevention during pregnancy, this study explores three main aspects of the attitude that pregnant African American with depression have. The authors

This can be problematic that can effect societal beliefs that can have a profound effect on how depression is diagnose due to racism. There is also a correlation on how Caucasian-Americans and African-Americans are treated differently when being diagnose with mental health disorders like depression. For example, Utsey, Chae, Brown, and Kelly (2002) found that for people of Color, cultural racism was related to lower levels of quality of life and that Blacks reported more experiences of individual and cultural race-related stress than other people of Color and had equal levels of institutional race-related stress. It is detrimental to address abnormalities of this of increase depression disorders due to racism against African-Americans because it can show correlations of socioeconomic status of African-Americans are placed into due to

At each age, in all income groups with different health life styles, African Americans have higher mortality and morbidity rates than whites. I agree with this as minorities have been oppressed and discriminated since the beginning of time, all the built-up stress can cause detrimental effects on the health of the fetus growing inside the womb leading to high premature births and infant mortality rates. Also, this may explain why African American women experience this despite having good health, high economic status, and following the doctor’s

Throughout this video the causes of low birth weights, amongst minorities, was examined. Despite prior popular beliefs, that low African American birth weights were caused by the socio-economic status of their mothers, a theory known as the life-course perspective identifies the presence of chronic stress as the cause of

society and stimulus” (Gilman) Where as in today’s society is more knowledgeable and is actively looking for solutions to the detection and assistance of getting needed help to the affected while eliminating isolation treatment of the woman experiencing the illness. Current society also does not shame a woman dealing with this illness is not a minority “Depression impairs approximately 7.5 million parents in the United States each year”.(Smith) Which is a huge part of the American population. Another reason of increased treatment is due to studies have shown “If untreated, depression can persist for years [10, 11]. Parental depression is associated with negative child health impacts extending into adulthood [9, 12]”.(Smith)

Black women are among the most undertreated groups for depression in the nation, which can have serious consequences on the African-American community (Huffington Post, 2014). I believe