Mental health in the United Kingdom
Agnes Hann of the National Childbirth Trust said, "These findings are shocking, and mean that thousands of women experiencing potentially serious perinatal mental health problems are not getting the support they need. Perinatal mental illness can have a severe and long-term impact on mothers, babies and families. In extreme circumstances, it can result in tragedy – suicide is a leading cause of maternal death." From roughly 10% to 20% of women giving birth experience some type of mental illness such as anxiety and depression or more complex problems like PTSD and psychosis. With about 665,000 births a year in England 66,500–133,000 women a year develop illnesses. In 2016, 13,000 women were treated by perinatal teams while 800 became inpatients. This means the majority were untreated.
Child psychopathology
In studies of child in two age groups of pregnancy to five years, and fifteen years and twenty years, Raposa and colleagues (2011) studied the impact of psychopathology in the child-maternal relationship and how not only the mothers stress affected the child, but the child's stress affected the mother. Historically, it was believed that mothers who suffered from post partum depression might be the reason their child suffers from mental disorders both earlier and later in development. However this correlation was found to not only reflect maternal depression on child psychopathology, but also child psychopathology could reflect on maternal depression.