Mental health problems affect up to 20% of new mothers, but provision of mother-and-baby support is patchy
The bed was covered with baby clothes neatly arranged with milestone cards for future events such as “coming home” and “Easter”. They were the outfits for all the special occasions Tara Maguire thought she would miss with her daughter Maisie, then just two weeks old. Downstairs her husband and mother-in-law were waiting to drive her to be admitted as an inpatient at the Bluestone psychiatric unit of Craigavon Area hospital in Northern Ireland. “It was really hard,” recalls Tara, wiping away tears.
Tara had postpartum psychosis, one of the mental health conditions that affect 10-20% of mothers either during pregnancy or the year after – the “perinatal” period. They include depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder and psychosis. Many factors make women more vulnerable to mental illness during this period, from changes in hormone levels and the brain, physical and psychological stress and traumas during birth, the sheer magnitude of this life event, or a potential genetic vulnerability.
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