Abstract
Parental mental health is a critical determinant of the future health and well-being of a child. Poor mental health is associated with poorer uptake of recommended antenatal care, pre-term delivery, and negative impacts on child development including physical, emotional, cognitive, and behavioural development. Longitudinal studies suggest that the association between mental health and health outcomes for both parents and infants begin well before conception and as early as adolescence.
An estimated 12 to 18 percent of New Zealand birthing parents will develop depression, anxiety, or other mental health issues during the perinatal period (the period surrounding childbirth), with annual prevalence rates for mental health disorders in the community estimated at around 20%. Secondary services to support postnatal mental health include hospitalisation and referral to specialist mental health, alcohol, and drug outpatient services. These data are routinely collected in the National Minimum Dataset (NMDS) and the Programme for the Integration of Mental Health Data (PRIMHD), respectively.
The aim of this research was to establish the extent to which the uptake of secondary mental health services postnatally is predicted by secondary service use prenatally. We used the National Maternity Collection (MAT) to form a cohort of people giving birth in a single year and NMDS and PRIMHD data to estimate the secondary mental health care received by this cohort. As poorer mental health is known to extend beyond the 6 weeks following birth, the use of secondary mental health care was measured across a period of up to three years postnatally. Further analyses assessed age, rurality, and region to determine secondary mental health service use in these populations.
This report has been prepared for the Paediatric Society of New Zealand and the Regions of Health New Zealand, Te Whatu Ora.