A multilevel developmental psychopathology model of childbirth and the perinatal transition

Abstract

Despite recent applications of a developmental psychopathology perspective to the perinatal period, these conceptualizations have largely ignored the role that childbirth plays in the perinatal transition. Thus, we present a conceptual model of childbirth as a bridge between prenatal and postnatal health. We argue that biopsychosocial factors during pregnancy influence postnatal health trajectories both directly and indirectly through childbirth experiences, and we focus our review on those indirect effects. In order to frame our model within a developmental psychopathology lens, we first describe “typical” biopsychosocial aspects of pregnancy and childbirth. Then, we explore ways in which these processes may deviate from the norm to result in adverse or traumatic childbirth experiences. We briefly describe early postnatal health trajectories that may follow from these birth experiences, including those which are adaptive despite traumatic childbirth, and we conclude with implications for research and clinical practice. We intend for our model to illuminate the importance of including childbirth in multilevel perinatal research. This advancement is critical for reducing perinatal health disparities and promoting health and well-being among birthing parents and their children.

Dynamic Associations Among Sleep, Emotion Dysregulation, and Desire to Live in a Perinatal Sample

“…This theoretical shift in suicide research has not been applied to studies on perinatal suicide risk, but its relevance is clear. The transition from pregnancy to postpartum involves massive biopsychosocial changes that have the potential to strengthen or disrupt regulatory patterns related to suicide risk (12)(13)(14). Birthing parents who present with low risk for attempting suicide may experience increases in protective factors, such as more familial support, that strengthen their low-risk temporal patterns.…”

Current perspectives on perinatal mental health and neurobehavioral development: focus on regulation, coregulation and self-regulation

“…Within science, integration from diverse disciplines and building transdisciplinary evidence is critical to address the challenge of promoting neurobehavioral development globally. That researchers have an important responsibility in perinatal mental healthcare and in communicating results concerning perinatal environmental exposure, neurodevelopment, and interventions is emphasized in several fields [15 ▪ ,118,154,193,205,208,230,240–251,257 ▪ ]. Community-oriented participatory research with key stakeholders [252], and community engagement [238] to gather ‘bottom-up’ concerns from parents and practitioners [253] is needed, and may contribute to advocacy [239,253].…”