This percentage rises to at least 25% or more in mothers with a preexisting psychiatric illness, particularly if medications were stopped for pregnancy.Īll mental health clinicians should be watching new mothers with a history of psychiatric illness closely and intervening to prevent or at least minimize the postpartum psychiatric illness for the sake of the mother, the family, and particularly the exposed children.īy focusing on identifying and treating maternal psychiatric illness, we can start to decrease long-term effects on the children and potentially decrease their risk for psychiatric illness as well. Fifteen percent of new mothers will experience postpartum depression from the general population. 1Įxposure to psychiatric illness in the household was one of the measured ACEs, and although this includes exposure to paternal (and other family members’) psychiatric illness, the only predictable time of onset of psychiatric illness overall is the postpartum time period. The CDC–Kaiser Permanente ACE study on adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) supports this idea because findings showed a dose response relationship between the number of ACEs experienced in childhood and negative long-term health and well-being outcomes, including cardiovascular health, substance abuse, and psychiatric illness, among others. One can even argue that focusing on minimizing women’s mental health and limiting or eliminating such conditions as postpartum depression and postpartum psychosis could lead to better health and mental health outcomes for whole communities. These considerations range from hormonal changes triggering psychiatric symptoms to taking into account in utero exposure of children to psychiatric medications and/or untreated psychiatric illness to the extra dose of stigma that women often face when seeking help for mental health conditions, particularly if they are from a minoritized population.įor years, women have been lumped in with men for research for both medical and mental health conditions, even when clinical experience dictates that psychiatric illness, in particular, is experienced differently in women and must be managed differently. Although the management of men’s mental health is obviously important, there are extra considerations connected to women’s mental health. Welcome to this Special Report on Women’s Mental Health.
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