Prioritising maternal mental health through research

Mental health through the generations

Sadly, perinatal mental health conditions often come with long-term adverse consequences for both mother and child. King’s researchers were one of the first groups to highlight the inter-relationships between mental disorders in mothers and a range of risk factors and disorders including social disadvantage, smoking, domestic violence, obesity and gestational diabetes.

Our research has shown the relationship between perinatal mental disorders and adverse outcomes for the child, including stillbirth, sudden infant death syndrome, low birth weight, delayed development, parenting difficulties, and loss of custody of the baby.

To raise awareness amongst policy and healthcare services, King’s researchers analysed data from the South London Child Development Study and showed that children of mothers who have perinatal depression had more emotional, behavioural and cognitive problems. King’s researchers assessed the economic cost of these childhood difficulties as a means to make a case for more funding and estimated the minimum economic cost by early adolescence to be £8,190 per child.

These stark findings highlighted the importance of identification and treatment of women with perinatal mental health problems to break this intergenerational cycle of mental ill health.

Uncovering the numbers, the conditions and the experience

Before 2014 most perinatal mental health research focused on depression and psychosis experienced after birth. Using gold-standard diagnostic interviews our researchers revealed that pregnant women experience a wider range of mental health conditions, including eating disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

Our research also examined the effectiveness of mental health screening questions in pregnant women and found that anxiety scales were not fit-for-purpose for perinatal mental health.

Using national suicide enquiry data we showed the distinct characteristics of perinatal suicides. The relatively short duration of mental disorder before suicide highlighted the absolute importance of timely support. This research also showed a substantial number of those who committed suicide were not receiving treatments for mental disorders.

£365 million in ringfenced new funding

Supported by their research which defined the urgent need for increased service provision, King’s researchers engaged with policy makers to catalyse a transformation of services for women with perinatal mental disorders in the UK and beyond.

Professor Louise Howard chaired a panel to develop NICE guidelines for clinical management and service guidance for mental health before and after birth. She also wrote a chapter for the Chief Medical Officer public health reports and compiled a highly influential The Lancet series of three reviews on perinatal mental health.