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Perinatal Psychiatry

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Part of the book series: Mental Health and Illness Worldwide ((MHIW))

Abstract

Women in the perinatal period are at risk for psychiatric disorders. They suffer from depression, anxiety disorders, puerperal psychosis, and bipolar disorder in both the antenatal and postnatal periods. If the affected mothers could not function properly, as a result, the children’s growth and development would be negatively affected. In severe cases mothers may even commit suicide. Depression is common. Incidence of postpartum depression ranges from 10% to 15%. Early detection, effective interventions, and importantly prevention should be delivered by well-trained health providers. Women with past psychiatric history of depression or depression during pregnancy are likely to have depression postnatally with a three to fourfold increase. Because of high incidence of depression and insufficient accessibility to mental health services, several screening methods including the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale are widely used. Some women with perinatal depressive disorders have comorbid anxiety disorders or obsessive-compulsive disorder. Most of their symptoms are relatively mild or moderate. Women with severe symptoms need to be on psychotropic medication. The adverse impact on fetus and breastfed babies should be taken into consideration. There is little evidence of negative outcomes among the infants whose mothers were on psychotropic drugs. Therefore, maternal symptoms should be viewed as priority. This issue is important and recently many projects are in progress for well-being of infants, mothers, and families.

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Correspondence to Keiko Yoshida .

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Yoshida, K., Iwayama, M., Das, P., Howard, L.M. (2020). Perinatal Psychiatry. In: Taylor, E., Verhulst, F., Wong, J., Yoshida, K., Nikapota, A. (eds) Mental Health and Illness of Children and Adolescents. Mental Health and Illness Worldwide. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0753-8_26-1

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