Healthcare in Pakistan
Depression often starts at young age and affects women more commonly than men. One or two mothers out of 10 have depression after childbirth. Depression also limits a mother’s capacity to care for her child, and can seriously affect the child’s growth and development. A study showed that exposure to maternal mental distress is associated with undernutrition in 9‐month infants in urban Pakistan.
Maternal deprivation
The term maternal deprivation is a scientific term summarising the early work of psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, John Bowlby on the effects of separating infants and young children from their mother (or mother substitute) although the effect of loss of the mother on the developing child had been considered earlier by Freud and other theorists. Bowlby's work on delinquent and affectionless children and the effects of hospital and institutional care led to his being commissioned to write the World Health Organization's report on the mental health of homeless children in post-war Europe whilst he was head of the Department for Children and Parents at the Tavistock Clinic in London after World War II. The result was the monograph "Maternal Care and Mental Health" published in 1951, which sets out the maternal deprivation hypothesis.