Hi everyone my name is ILO and I'm a registered Midwife and childbirth education instructor I practice Midwifery in a large Urban setting in Canada and I have two lovely children at home I love educating families throughout the prenatal period during their births and in the postpartum as well in today's video we're going to tackle perinatal mental Health we'll discuss some definitions Define what exactly perinatal mental health is we'll review some statistics and then we'll talk about risk factors so let's get started so what exactly is perinatal mental health perinatal mental health is kind of a catchall term that encompasses the emotional well-being of the birthing person from the time of conception all the way to one year after the baby's born perinatal mental health affects not just the birthing person but our partners as well it's a massive massive undertaking and life change and not every birthing person feels the same way we can have feelings of really strong intense emotion ambivalence worry anxiety all of that mixed up together and having those uncertainties about the pregnancy and the birth does not mean that you're a bad parent or that you don't love your child it's really different for everybody and everyone adapts differently to this big big life change whenever we're discussing perinatal mental health I always like to take time for a disclaimer off the top for folks that have a history of trauma mood disorders anxiety depression these topics can be triggering so make sure that you take time for yourself and really our goal at the end of this video is to give you some extra tools some coping strategies mechanisms that you can incorporate in your day-to-day to help you tackle these subjects let's talk about statistics We Love stats in healthcare about 1/8 of women experience symptoms of postpartum depression sadly some women do not report report their symptom of depression at their clinic visits or are not asked by their health care provider some sources report that nearly 50% of postpartum depression symptoms are not diagnosed by a health professional that's a lot of women when we move on to anxiety somewhere between 14 and 20% of women reported feeling feelings of anxiety either presenting for the first time in the postpartum or worsening in the postpartum period anxiety is an interesting one we all have some degree of anxiety in our lives but this is an overwhelming sense of anxiety finally women can also suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder postnatally this affects about 3% of women trauma and stress are very different for everybody so sometimes the PTSD is a result of things that happened during the birth itself or past traumas that come up for the first time with the new experiences that happen during the course of the birth or in the postpartum period there are particular risk factors that make us vulnerable to perinatal mental health struggles this could be a personal or family history of mental health issues it could be be anxiety or depression in the pregnancy it could be a previous traumatic birth it could be limited emotional support poor interpersonal relationships including those with your partner it could even be intimate partner violence it could be adverse childhood events abuse neglect physical emotional it could be sexual trauma it could be a teen pregnancy an unwanted pregnancy or even body dysmorphia which sometimes is particularly challenging for folks that identify as gender non-binary it could also be a recent adverse life event like the death of a loved one it could be a sensitivity to the fluctuation of hormones so those that course through your body in relation to your menstrual cycle for example it could be a history of sleep disturbances in Omnia or that overwhelming sense of having to do it all and be the Superwoman it could be poor social supports or limited socioeconomic circumstances that could include new immigrants who sometimes feel very isolated being away from their home countries and historic traditional family supports it could also be housing insecurity financial hardship or even food insecurity and access to good quality nutritious foods that brings us to the end of this video on perinatal mental health I hope you found the information helpful be sure to check out the others in this series we have lots of great content on navigating that transition to new Parenthood pregnancy childbirth and infant feeding take care and we'll see you next time