Perinatal Mental Health in Contexts of Risk

The perinatal period constitutes a stage of heightened psychological vulnerability, especially when motherhood develops in contexts marked by cumulative risk factors such as exposure to war, forced displacement, trauma, emotional instability, psychosocial stress, or the presence of depressive and post-traumatic symptoms. Under the title “Perinatal Mental Health in Contexts of Risk”, this symposium brings together four presentations focused on the identification, understanding, and management of risk or vulnerability conditions that may compromise women’s psychological well-being during pregnancy and the postpartum period, constituting a first scenario for the prevention of child developmental difficulties.

The contributions included provide an approach to perinatal risk from a broad and integrated perspective.

First, the impact of war-related stress on Ukrainian women will be analysed, examining its role as a moderator in the relationship between emotional stability, post-traumatic stress symptoms, and postpartum depression.

Second, the relationship between forced displacement and childbirth-related post-traumatic stress disorder will be addressed, considering the associated factors in Ukrainian perinatal women.

The third presentation will focus on trauma treatment in perinatal women exposed to war contexts, highlighting the need for trauma-informed interventions adapted to situations of high adversity.

Alongside these contributions focused on extreme risk contexts, the symposium also incorporates two studies aimed at the early detection of psychological risk during pregnancy in the Spanish population. The psychometric properties of the Psychosocial Risk Questionnaire will be presented as a tool for identifying risk situations and screening for prenatal depression, as well as the validation of the Whooley and Arroll questions for the rapid detection of prenatal depression in Spanish women.

Taken together, these contributions emphasize that risk in perinatal mental health should not be understood solely as the presence of clinical symptoms in the mother, but rather as a constellation of individual, traumatic, social, and contextual factors that may interact and increase the likelihood of psychological distress during the transition to motherhood.

Depression, post-traumatic stress, exposure to violence, forced displacement, and the absence of adequate support can affect the quality of the early parent-child bond, parental sensitivity, and the emotional conditions in which a child’s development begins. Therefore, early identification, specific assessment, and the design of context-sensitive interventions are not only relevant for protecting women’s mental health during the perinatal period, but also for promoting safer, more sensitive, and healthier developmental trajectories for children.