Risk Factors of Postnatal Depression Among Immigrants in Norway

Migration is not a new phenomenon, it has become an integral and inevitable part of global and economic development. Better communication and easier and faster transport system increases both voluntary and forced migration. The United States, Canada, and Australia were built on migration, and most European countries were saved by being able to send millions of people to other places when confronted with massive agricultural, political, or economic crises. Illness and death rates associated with migration are exacerbated by a lack of policies needed to make migration a healthy and socially productive process. Migrants are typically poor people moving from poor economic environments, they carry with them the health profiles that result from poverty. Migrants can also be healthy people with initiatives and economy to migrate. Migration, even under the best of conditions, involves a series of events that can be highly traumatizing and that can place migrants at risk. From a public health point of view, migration has serious ramifications for the people that move, the family they leave behind, and the communities that host the newcomers. Migration means breaking with family, friends, and established social networks, departing from traditional routines, value system, feeling of isolation, and these all are often detrimental to both mental health and social integration (Carballo M 2001).