It takes a village: Broadening coparent support to enhance perinatal mental health

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

One in five women will experience depression during the perinatal period (defined as the period from pregnancy to 1‐year post‐childbirth), making it the most common complication of childbirth. Rates are even higher among women of color and those with lower incomes who face numerous societal inequities, including discrimination, barriers to quality health care, and inadequate family leave policies. The COVID‐19 pandemic has only worsened the outlook; rates of perinatal depression appear to be significantly higher than they were pre‐pandemic (Tomfohr‐Madsen et al., 2021). While maternal perinatal depression has received substantial empirical attention, the developing literature on paternal depression suggests that fathers are also at increased risk for depression during the transition to parenthood. Studies indicate that approximately 10% of new fathers experience elevated depressive symptoms during the perinatal period; the prevalence is as high as 50% among men with severely depressed partners (Paulson & Bazemore, 2010).