Abstract
Depression is widely prevalent among women in the child-bearing age, especially during the antenatal and postnatal period. Globally, post-partum depression has been reported in almost 10% to 20% of mothers, and it can start from the moment of birth, or may result from depression evolving continuously since pregnancy. The presence of depression among women has gained a lot of attention not only because of the rising incidence or worldwide distribution, but also because of the serious negative impact on personal, family and child developmental outcomes. Realizing the importance of maternal depression on different aspects-personal, child, and familial life, there is a crucial need to design a comprehensive public health policy (including a mental health strategy), to ensure that universal psychosocial assessment in perinatal women is undertaken within the primary health care system. To conclude, depression during pregnancy and in the postnatal period is a serious public health issue, which essentially requires continuous health sector support to eventually benefit not only the woman, but also the family, the community, and health care professionals.
Copyright
Association for Helping Neurosurgical Sick People. This is an open access article published by Thieme under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Derivative-Non Commercial License, permitting copying and reproduction so long as the original work is given appropriate credit.
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This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives License, which permits unrestricted reproduction and distribution, for non-commercial purposes only; and use and reproduction, but not distribution, of adapted material for non-commercial purposes only, provided the original work is properly cited.
