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Prevent depression in pregnancy to boost all mental health

Tackling mental disorders before they arise in pregnant women and new mothers is an approach that could be scaled up online — and would aid the overall health of populations.
  1. Ricardo F. Muñoz

    1. Ricardo F. Muñoz is distinguished professor of clinical psychology and founding director of the Institute for International Internet Interventions for Health (i4Health) at Palo Alto University, California; and professor of psychology emeritus in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco, Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and Trauma Center, California, USA.

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Pregnant women paint their bellies with smiling faces to celebrate "Healthy Maternity Week"

Pregnant women in Lima, Peru, painted each other in 2013 to help a local hospital to raise awareness of good maternity health care. Credit: Enrique Castro-Mendivil/Reuters

I have been convinced of the importance of prevention in addressing mental-health problems since the early 1970s, when I began my doctorate in clinical psychology. But only now is there sufficient evidence from clinical trials of the effectiveness of preventive interventions, using approaches derived from interpersonal and cognitive behavioural therapy, to justify deploying them. And only now are the tools available to make such interventions available to people worldwide.

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Nature 574, 631-633 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03226-8

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