After giving birth to a child, mothers are filled with many emotions. However, for many, this can include feelings of depression, and in a situation surrounded by so much joy and celebrations, such emotions can be hard for mothers to process.
However, in fact, around one in five mothers suffer from the effects of postpartum depression, and 7/10 have some low feelings, and we must all work together to better understand the impacts of postpartum depression, and remove the stigma surrounding it.
Obstetric Coevolution (OBCOE) is a citizen science project that aims to co-evolve obstetric practices to enhance the birthing experience by answering how they affect mothers’ mental health and collaboratively evolve obstetric practices, thereby fostering a more positive birth experience.
The OBCOE project has worked with 22 mothers and 15 birth professionals within workshops to co-develop an 80-question survey addressing some of the issues faced by recently given birth, which over 400 mothers have answered. The results of these workshops identified the significant challenges these women experienced, including medicalisation, communication, fear before delivery, mental health beyond postpartum depression, like PTSD, and postpartum loneliness. The results of the survey added quantitative data to support these findings.
Using these findings as a starting point, the OBCOE team worked alongside the mothers and health professionals to co-create four proposals to help mothers deal with these concerns, including one-to-one sessions with medical professionals, better sexual and reproductive education, and the importance of community. With these in mind, OBCOE hopes to drive policy changes prioritising mothers’ mental health.
The OBCOE project’s work received an honourable mention at the 2024 European Prize for Citizen Science, and the IMPETUS team could not be more thrilled. As a member of last year’s accelerator programme’s 2023 cohort of CSIs as a kickstarting project and continuing their IMPETUS journey this year as a sustaining project as part of the 2024 cohort, it has been an absolute pleasure to work with the OBCOE team, see this project develop, and have their great work recognised on an international level.
In this special IMPETUS Interview, we talk about their work with Irene Lapuente from OBCOE.
Watch the full interview here:
