Starting Conversations About Maternal Mental Health

We want to start a conversation about maternal mental health issues. Motherhood is so often associated with happiness, joy, and good fortune that the negative emotions like stress, fear, sadness, and anxiety can end up being swept under the rug. In particular, when serious mental health conditions like postpartum depression arise, societal pressures can make it difficult for new mothers to seek help.

In Nicaragua, mental health care is underfunded and often inaccessible. Less than 25% of the population has any access to mental health care and only 1% of national spending on health is allocated to mental health. Additionally, the issues themselves are historically poorly researched: while it is estimated that some 33 to 50% of pregnant women in Nicaragua experience a significant mental health issue, a great deal more information needs to be collected on the subject (12, 13).

This combination of high levels of stigma with lack of access and lack of information means that maternal mental health issues like postpartum anxiety and depression are rarely talked about, let alone actually treated. We are not certified health professionals, nor are we in any way capable of providing mental health care. However, we still wanted to find a way to help increase awareness of these issues, hoping that by starting a conversation on the emotional health of pregnant women and mothers, we can encourage them to talk to each other, support one another, and perhaps advocate for themselves and other women across Nicaragua.