Pregnancy , Delivery and Mental Health

Pregnancy and delivery have a major impact on the mental health of women, and give rise to many conditions mainly including maternity blues, postpartum depression, and puerperal psychosis, and also including psychiatric symptoms, neurosis, personality disorders and alcohol or drug dependence. While the incidence of maternity blues among postpartum women is high, the symptoms are improved spontaneously with no sequelae. On the other hand, postpartum depression persists for longer periods, leading to insufficient mother-infant interaction and further to the developmental disturbance of infants. Although puerperal psychosis is infrequent, it is commonly associated with delusion and the risk of infanticide. When mothers have this type of mental health problem, they cannot adequately take care of their children and develop feelings of guilt toward their children. Therefore, support for child rearing should be given to mothers. In order to foster motherinfant interaction, it might be helpful to room mothers and their infants together in hospitals, as well as to prescribe psychotropic drugs the safety of which has been confirmed in terms of transfer to breast milk, in promoting the normal development of children and preventing mothers from developing feelings of guilt. In order to prevent the occurrence of, and promote recovery from, the symptoms of psychosis, measures should be taken to remove anxiety and conflict among pregnant women attributable to psychological and social factors.