The Impact of Antepartum Mental Health Problems on Long-Term Health and Economic Outcomes of Mothers and their Children

Research Area: Social and behavioral health sciences
Keywords: Mental Health, Pregnancy, Parental Outcomes, Maternal Depression, Maternal and Child Health, Healthcare expenditures, Birth Outcomes, Antepartum Mental Health

Principal Investigator: Whitney Witt and Thomas DeLeire

(Funded by the Institute for Research on Poverty)
Drs. Whitney Witt and Thomas DeLeire lead a program of research to examine the impact of antepartum mental health problems on proximate and long-term outcomes of mothers and their children. The primary goal of this research is to better understand the impact of women’s self-reported poor mental health status and conditions during pregnancy on health -related outcomes among mothers and their children. Understanding these relationships is essential to improving the mental health of pregnant women as well as that of women and children in the postnatal period. These studies use a nationally representative population based sample of pregnant women in the US.