Objective Explore the prevalence of mental disorders, health risk factors, and access to mental health services before and during the perinatal period in women with a history of social care involvement prior to pregnancy. Method Longitudinal cohort study using a data linkage between primary, maternity, and mental health records in the London borough of Lambeth held within the Early Life Cross‐Linkage in Research (eLIXIR) Partnership database and Lambeth DataNet. We compared women with a singleton pregnancy leading to a live birth between January 2018 and December 2021 with a history of social care involvement before pregnancy ( n = 289; 5.2%) to those without ( n = 5254; 94.8%) on the prevalence of mental disorders, preconception risk factors, and health service or social care contact during the perinatal period. Results There are large inconsistencies of recordings of social care involvement between primary care and maternity care. Women with social care involvement before pregnancy experience had increased levels of mental disorders, preconception risk factors, mental health (adj OR 2.55; 95% CI (1.82–3.57), p < 0.001) and social care service referrals (adj OR 7.29; 95% CI (4.83–10.99), p < 0.001), and antidepressant use (adj OR 2.08; 95% CI (1.31–3.33), p < 0.001) during the perinatal period. Conclusions There is a need for better data integration and agency working between social care and healthcare to support women with complex social factors during the perinatal period. Healthcare and social care staff should adopt a trauma‐informed approach, aiming to build therapeutic relationship with women. Services need to consider the wider reproductive health needs of women accessing their services.
Catalão et al. (Thu,) studied this question.