Black women experience a higher prevalence of maternal mental health conditions, particularly postpartum depression and anxiety, relative to the US population as a whole. In addition, maternal mental health issues among Black women are largely underreported, and symptoms often go unaddressed.
Structural and social determinants are increasingly recognized as contributing factors to mental health; social and economic disasters exacerbate inequities in mental health outcomes and well-being and have implications for pregnant and postpartum populations. Identifying racism, sexism, classism, and other systems of oppression shifts the narrative of blame from individual-level behaviors and focuses interventions at the systems level. This increased recognition and acknowledgment have spurred advocacy for upstream interventions that address the root causes of mental illnesses.
Black birthing people encounter societal and system barriers when seeking and receiving health and social support services. Lack of universal mental health education and screening, particularly during pregnancy, creates missed opportunities to counsel patients on symptoms and management of depression, anxiety, and other mental health disorders and to inform them about resources available to them in clinical care and community settings. In addition, limited community resources and structured-referral provider networks lead to higher rates of inpatient hospital-based care, as opposed to care in community-based settings, for Black birthing populations.
The perspectives and experiences of Black birthing people in maternal mental health research are key to identifying practice and treatment solutions.
Read more at HealthAffairs.org.
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