Santé mentale périnatale en période de pandémie COVID-19 :protéger, dépister, accompagner

[Domestic violence among Quebec women during the health crisis: Trends and risk factors]

This article examines the evolution of domestic violence (DV) among Quebec women during the Covid-19 pandemic and the factors associated with this phenomenon. Based on the literature, we observed that DV increased significantly in Quebec during the health crisis. Furthermore, it appears that job loss, which affected more women than men, increased social isolation, deterioration of the mental health of spouses, increased alcohol and cannabis consumption, and difficulties in reconciling work and family life are the factors that contribute most to the increase in DV in Quebec during this period.

[Perinatal beliefs: Neurocognitive mechanisms and cultural specificities]

Perinatal beliefs contribute to the experience of pregnancy and the process of parenthood. Many of these perinatal beliefs have been perpetuated and evolved over time and throughout the world, exerting their influence on the behavior of pregnant women in interaction with medical recommendations. These beliefs generally offer explanations for gravidic and puerperal phenomena, helping to reduce the uncertainty of parents faced with the biological, psychological and social transitions of pregnancy. But certain beliefs can also be harmful, and alter the maternal experience of pregnancy and postpartum. In this paper, we provide an overview of the beliefs associated with the perinatal period. We successively detail the beliefs concerning fertility, pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum, specifying the cultural beliefs from other cultures interacting with medical recommendations. Finally, we propose a neurocognitive model of perinatal beliefs generation, and we show the need to know these beliefs to improve care in midwifery, obstetrics, and fetal medicine.

Becoming a Mother During COVID-19 Pandemic: How to Protect Maternal Mental Health Against Stress Factors

During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were an increasing prevalence of perinatal psychiatric symptoms, such as perinatal anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorders. This growth could be caused by a range of direct and indirect stress factors related to the virus and changes in health, social and economic organization. In this review, we explore the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on perinatal mental health, and propose a range of hypothesis about their etiological mechanisms. We suggest first that the fear of being infected or infected others (intrauterine transmission, passage of the virus from mother to baby during childbirth, infection through breast milk), and the uncertainty about the effect of the virus on the fetuses and infants may have played a key-role to weakening the mental health of mothers. We also highlight that public health policies such as lockdown, limiting prenatal visits, social distancing measures, and their many associated socio-economic consequences (unemployment, loss of income, and domestic violence) may have been an additional challenge for perinatal mental health. Ground on these hypotheses, we finally purpose some recommendations to protect perinatal mental health during a pandemic, including a range of specific support based on digital technologies (video consultations, phone applications) during pregnancy and the postpartum period.