 benefit from the efforts made to screen and identify their circumstances.
PSYCHOSOCIAL AND SOCIOCULTURAL IMPACT
What is keeping women from seeking out care to address their postpartum healthcare needs?
Despite the many efforts to reduce the shame and isolation associated with the diagnosis of various mental health conditions within the United States, the stigma continues to pervade within American culture. Baines and colleagues (2013) indicate that some mothers who have been positively identified as experiencing PPD “are reluctant to seek professional help for fear they will be admitted to a psychiatric unit, get ‘locked up’ or have their baby taken from them.” (p. 780). Women have also reported that they are ashamed to admit to partners and family the feelings they are experiencing, and as a result suffer with their emotions silently – or may be completely unaware that their emotional response to the postpartum experience is beyond the scope of ‘typical’ baby blues (Kim & Dee, 2017).
Other research indicates that there is a general distrust of healthcare providers and the greater healthcare establishment, with women regarding each as threatening or as an inappropriate solution to their needs (Baines, Wittkowski, & Wieck, 2013). Fear and distrust of the medical establishment is particularly prevalent among low socioeconomic demographics and minority populations, who represent an increasingly vulnerable population for the prevalence of PPD. While the American Psychiatric Association has rounded their estimate to one in seven women to experience the condition of PPD, research suggests that women of color may develop an increased rate of PPD at upwards of 38% (Keefe, Brownstein-Evans, & Polomanteer, 2016).
While PPD poses a serious mental health concern for the mother as an individual, there exists an additional critical concern for the developmental and emotional health of the infant. The impact upon infant health is particularly important within the first year postpartum (Barkin & Wisner, 2013). Untreated postpartum depression can result in impaired child development and growth, a hindered ability for the mother to bond and form an attachment to the baby, challenge maternal parent self-efficacy, and negatively impact the marital relationship (Feeley et al., 2016).
The problems that surround the issue of postpartum depression (PPD) are multifaceted as mental health presents as a serious public health concern, while the quality of mother and infant bonding, maturing to mother and child interaction, has a tremendous impact on society (Barkin & Wisner, 2013). Investing in best-practice mental health care for postpartum women is imperative for both the woman and the family she is accountable to. It is paramount that effective treatment and adequate support be provided to mothers with depression following childbirth; however, one of the greatest barriers to executing best care is in first identifying the population in need as many mothers are reluctant to seek care (Baines, Wittkowski, & Wieck, 2013). Despite the growing recognition of the matter and awareness to the need for improved intervention services, studies suggest that the fear of stigma remains the most significant deterrent to the seeking of services (Shivakumar, Brandon, Johnson, & Freeman, 2014).
Working to change the conversation about maternal mental health...
Reproductive Psychiatrist, Alexandra Sacks, discusses the "emotional tug-of-war" that can accompany a woman's transition to motherhood, and how our culture has yet to adequately define or understand what this transition implies.
In this TedTalk, she offers a new term that may help define the process that occurs for many women: matrescence.
LEARN MORE ABOUT THE ROLE OF OCCUPATIONAL THERAPY IN ADDRESSING PPD
PPD'S IMPACT ON THE OCCUPATIONAL PROFILE
The included table (Table 1) describes the ways in which postpartum depression can have the potential for broad impact upon an individual’s occupational profile. The information in Table 1 representing Category and Description of occupation is directly quoted from