The World Health Organization has declared that maternal mental health problems constitute a major public health challenge. One of the most concerning conditions is perinatal depression (PND), defined as the onset of depression that occurs during pregnancy (antenatal) or within the postpartum period and is conservatively thought to affect between 12% to 20% of pregnant and postpartum women. As a result, PND will affect as many as 800,000 women annually in the USA. PND is a significant cause of morbidity and maternal suicide is one of the greatest causes of maternal mortality. PND is also associated with less sensitive parenting resulting in serious adverse sequelae for the child. There are documented increased rates of accidental injury, child abuse, neglect, and infanticide. While there exist accurate assessment tools available to diagnose PND, many obstetrical care services lack an effective and efficient screening process and mental health treatment is often limited. Subsequently, widely accessible and acceptable mental health treatment options are often very limited for many women during the perinatal period, thereby representing an urgent unmet need to educate and train health care providers and implement effective and wide scale screening and treatment strategies. Susceptibility to PND is a function of epigenetic, genetic, and psychosocial interactions. Increasing our understanding of the underlying pathophysiology is vital for improving our ability to identify those women at risk to inform early detection and treatment of PND. The long-term goal is optimizing outcomes for women and their families affected by PND. Our ability to broadly expand the reach of effective intervention will come from translational science and developing models of personalized care for PND. The goals of the proposed conference are: 1) increase recognition of the urgent unmet needs in perinatal mental illness with the goal of reducing barriers to screening and treatment; 2) promote the conduct of translational science in perinatal mental health to optimize treatment for pregnant and postpartum women and decrease adverse outcomes for mothers and their infants; 3) enhance ways to expand the reach of effective treatments (psychological, pharmacologic and other) across a broad range of diverse patient populations and settings (urban, rural); and 4) provide mentorship and training opportunities for the next generation to ensure interdisciplinary research collaboration and an adequate number of new investigators dedicated to improving perinatal mental health.
Perinatal mental health disorders pose significant public health challenges that are often underdiagnosed and undertreated. Perinatal depression (PND), occurring during pregnancy and the postpartum period), is associated with significant morbidity for mother and child and suicide is one of the greatest causes of maternal mortality. This conference will increase recognition of the urgent unmet needs in perinatal mental illness; promote the conduct of translational science to optimize treatment and decrease adverse outcomes for mothers and their infants; enhance ways to expand the reach of effective treatments across a broad range of diverse patient populations and settings; and provide mentorship and training opportunities for the next generation to ensure interdisciplinary research collaboration and an adequate number of new investigators dedicated to improving perinatal mental health.
