Interventions to reduce stress, anxiety or depression, as appropriate, should be introduced, with the awareness that much more research needs to be done to evaluate which is most effective and under what circumstances. Community based programs that are sensitive to the variable needs and concerns of new parents could offer information and support while planning the parent’s return to work and reviewing their child care options. The implications of postnatal stress may be more consequential than the biological effects of prenatal stress. However, supports for families should cover both the prenatal and postnatal periods.
It is known that the majority (80%) of women who experience stress during pregnancy have healthy birth outcomes. However, more research is needed to determine why some women and babies are at increased risk for adverse outcomes. Additional studies are needed to understand:
-
the role and impact of different coping strategies;
-
the relevance of severity of stress;
-
the relative impact of chronic stress versus a single stressful episode;
-
the importance of the timing of stressful events; and
-
the effect of multiple risk factors (to better understand the biological and behavioural mechanisms that mediate the effects of maternal stress).
There is a need for precise and accurate definitions and measures of psychological stress to support methodological consistency and scientific rigour in the research.
There is now considerable interest in the effects of leave policies and the length of leave taken on mothers’ physical and mental health and children’s subsequent development.
More research on the determinants (such as the sex of the child, household structure, parental education and the availability of high-quality child care) of maternal employment or length of leaves is also needed. Research should examine both maternity and paternity leaves with respect to what society needs (child development, population growth, career needs), as policy changes alone will not dictate a cultural shift.
Policy and legislation could be designed to give women more choices about when and how to work while pregnant. Federal funding for research targeting countries where both maternity leave and child care options are available could be used to study the benefits to parents and children in the home and child care. Researchers need to further monitor the impacts of parental leave on children and child development; clearly, no industrialized country today should be without such provisions.
See also....
|