No abstract

This commentary will provide a general overview of the public health considerations of maternal mental illness, both from a global perspective as well as from the South African context. The paper will outline the consequences of maternal mental illness for mothers as well as their offspring, through the life stages from pregnancy until adulthood. The paper then describes the Perinatal Mental Health Project (PMHP), an intervention that addresses maternal mental health in Cape Town, South Africa. The evidence emerging from this example contributes to the case for integrating maternal mental health into the mainstream health environment.

No abstract

In South Africa, approximately one third of resource‐poor women experience mental illness during pregnancy. Prevalence is higher in low‐resource settings than in developed countries. The poverty–mental illness cycle is well documented. Through the capabilities approach, this paper locates maternal mental illness in a development framework and explores the deprivational impacts of mental illness. It describes a counselling intervention in South Africa as a case study and applies a qualitative content analysis to descriptive data of a sample of five typical clients. Findings suggest that integrated maternal mental health care may act as a strategic intervention for capability formation and sustainable development. Copyright © 2015 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.