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Poster Short Abstract

SUSTAINABLE MOTHERHOOD: citizen science project to generate new knowledge in understanding psychological and emotional aspects of the postpartum period, co-designing and co-developing new solutions that improve the experience of women and their families during motherhood, with healthcare services.

Poster Abstract

The World Health Organization indicates that 15% of women worldwide experience mental health problems during pregnancy. This percentage rises to 19.8% among women who have already given birth.

Consequences of mental health disorders during pregnancy or postpartum in the form of stress, psychosocial problems, and health issues are clear, but there are also negative consequences on the baby's development: rejection, abandonment of breastfeeding, bonding disorders, reduced care, suicide of the mother or infanticide.

Recent "State of Motherhood in Europe 2024" study developed by Make Mother Matters NGO also reveals that mothers in Europe, feel overburdened, mistreated by an inflexible labor system, and undervalued socially, which is creating a worrying crisis in maternal mental health that is impacting society as a whole.

Spanish public health services still have only tentative initiatives to address perinatal mental health. It is essential to have a health policy committed to perinatal mental health and the emotional well-being of women and their families.

SUSTAINABLE MOTHERHOOD is an ongoing national funded citizen science initiative to better understand and generate new knowledge about the postpartum process, with a special emphasis on mental health and emotional well-being of the new family.

The project is focus on defining the postpartum period challenges, obtaining data from various participatory processes, including co-creation sessions with users following design thinking methodologies, surveys, participatory ethnography, and finally the analysis and dissemination of the data obtained. We will create a sound and audio bank and the generation of transmedia stories describing the ideas, beliefs, narratives, and practices of the group and the community itself.

A workshop with health decision makers will be held to work on the formulation of public policies and/or strategies around perinatal mental health.

The poster will show the project methodology as well as the postpartum challenges already validated by our citizen scientists.