BACKGROUND Women at risk of poor perinatal mental health benefit from coordinated approaches to care. Perinatal and infant mental health (PIMH) services have been established to support women with social and emotional needs. This paper examines the nature and extent of collaboration within two PIMH services in Australia. METHODS A convergent, embedded, mixed methods design was used. Two hundr...

OBJECTIVE To establish the prevalence of common perinatal mental disorders their determinants, and their association with preventive health care use among women in one rural and one urban province in northern Viet Nam. METHODS We conducted a cross-sectional survey of cohorts of pregnant women and mothers of infants recruited systematically in 10 randomly-selected communes. The women participa...

BACKGROUND Perinatal common mental disorders (PCMDs) are a major cause of disability among women. Psychosocial interventions are one approach to reduce the burden of PCMDs. Working with care providers who are not mental health specialists, in the community or in antenatal health care facilities, can expand access to these interventions in low-resource settings. We assessed effects of such inter...

BACKGROUND In sub Saharan Africa little progress has been made towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Lack of achievement of MDGs is reflected in only minor changes in maternal mortality and child health - this is especially true in Ethiopia. Perinatal depression is common in developing countries where one in three women has a significant mental health problem during pregnancy and ...

BACKGROUND Traditional perinatal practices may protect against postnatal common mental disorders (CMD) in non-Western societies. AIMS To evaluate the association between perinatal practices and postnatal CMD in rural Ethiopia. METHOD A population-based sample of 1065 women was followed up from pregnancy until 2 months postpartum. Qualitative investigation informed the development of scales ...

This commentary will provide a general overview of the public health considerations of maternal mental illness, both from a global perspective as well as from the South African context. The paper will outline the consequences of maternal mental illness for mothers as well as their offspring, through the life stages from pregnancy until adulthood. The paper then describes the Perinatal Mental He...