Migrant mothers' mental health communication in the perinatal period

This report brings together findings from a project on perinatal mental health difficulties amongst migrant mothers, funded by the Wellcome Trust (208437/Z/17/Z), and on early motherhood and digital media, funded by the British Academy (SG151884). Both projects involved interviews with mothers in their homes, with a very small number of them interviewed online. Healthcare professionals were sometimes interviewed on phone. Interviews were qualitative and semi-structured and took the form of free-flowing conversations broadly based on a topic guide. Recruitment through informal channels such as social media and word-of-mouth had limited success and participants recruited through this route accounted for around a quarter of the final set of participants. A recruitment agency was commissioned to administer a door-to-door questionnaire to recruit remaining participants who lived across England, covering mainly the Midlands the South of England and Greater London. Mothers came from a wide range of countries of origin largely in South Asia and Africa and a few from continental Europe. There was a mix of first and second generation immigrants in the final sample. A total of 68 mothers participated across the projects. All participants have been assigned pseudonyms. This report uses selective instances of quotes from interviews to illustrate overall findings and themes