Improving Maternal Mental Health

The mental health of women not only adversely affects them, but its impact on their developing infant is also severe. If the ability of women to take care of their baby is compromised, the survival and development of the infant is jeopardized. Maternal depression in resource-constrained settings is linked directly to lower infant birth weight, higher rates of malnutrition and stunting, higher rates of diarrhoeal disease, infectious illness and hospital admission and reduced completion of recommended schedules of immunization in children. It also adversely affects physical, cognitive, social, behavioural and emotional development of children (1).