Maternal Mental Health in Home Visiting: Addressing Depression, Anxiety, and Stress

Maternal mental health extends beyond postpartum depression. Many women experience anxiety, stress, and other mental health needs throughout their parenting journey.

Researchers and practitioners are increasingly looking at how women feel during and after their pregnancies. They’re also examining potential connections between depression, anxiety, and stress.

Home visiting programs have begun integrating strategies to acknowledge the broadened scope of maternal mental health. Some models, for example, seek to directly address needs or support mothers with a history of trauma or poor mental health. Others use mental health clinicians to provide individualized assessment and treatment with a focus on parent-child relationships. Home visiting programs have also partnered with mental health providers or offered skills-based psychoeducation and coaching delivered by nonclinical home visiting staff.

This brief builds on a 2018 research synthesis conducted by the National Home Visiting Resource Center to incorporate information on anxiety and stress. The authors reanalyzed the literature to identify strategies and home visiting models that aim to support the mental health needs of expectant and new mothers. Research provides insight into three questions:

• How does maternal mental health affect child development?
• What can home visiting programs do to address maternal mental health?
• What are the implications for research and practice?