Perinatal mental health: The launching spot to our mental health
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Abstract
The complexity of caring for two minds at a single time, happens when an expecting mother is, in turn, taking care of her future baby. All the efforts of the health provider must converge at this moment to maintain the greatest well-being of both the mother and the fetus. However, in reality, difficulties are present and determine some mental symptoms. Moreover, illnesses like depression and anxiety are not discarded in the perinatal period. It is well known that emotional disorders are common during pregnancy, especially in vulnerable populations (WHO, 2021). In Mexican women, perinatal depression has been estimated to range from 8.2% to 20%, depending on the timing of the evaluation (Lara et al., 2015), while perinatal anxiety symptoms reported rate is 21% in the pregnancy and 18% in the postpartum (Juárez Padilla, 2021). Those disorders are frequently unrecognized and untreated, with the consequences that entail them (Flores-Ramos et al., 2013). Mental comorbidities during pregnancy exert important impacts on both growth and neurodevelopment of the fetus and the neonate, with adverse outcomes for both mother and the offspring in the postnatal life.
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