Perinatal Mental Health During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence for Heightened Distress in Pregnant Women Highlights the Need for Novel Interventions

This manuscript reports on a sample of 641 pregnant women surveyed in spring 2020, during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic when social distancing was at its peak in the United States. Expectant mothers described elevated psychological distress, perceived stress, loneliness, and many behavioral changes. More than half of the women in the sample endorsed depressive symptoms above clinical threshold and two-thirds reported clinically significant anxiety, with average scores for depression, anxiety, and stress more than a standard deviation higher than those measured pre-pandemic. Given this early evidence for heightened distress, treatment options that can be targeted to support perinatal women and comply with social distancing guidelines are needed. The final sections of this paper highlight the promising role of telehealth modalities and discuss specific interventions, such as Interpersonal Therapy, that may be particularly useful in treating perinatal women in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Public Significance: The COVID-19 pandemic has had sweeping effects on perinatal mental health, which in turn has wide-ranging impacts for maternal, child, and family well-being. This paper describes treatment approaches that may ameliorate the pandemic’s impact.