SRIP 41st annual conference report

For the first time, the SRIP annual conference took place online from the 8th to the 10th of September 2021. Over two and a half days, the 41st SRIP conference welcomed 149 delegates from 15 countries, to its online platform. The cancellation of the 2020 conference due to the COVID-19 pandemic meant that the 2021 conference included presentations and keynotes from both 2020 and 2021. Thus, the 2021 conference’s programme was somewhat bigger than in previous years! In all, the programme featured 106 speakers, 12 oral presentation sessions, seven symposia, 41 posters, two workshops without forgetting three distinguished keynote speakers and four SRIP prize winners.

This year’s conference programme included presentations on a wide range of topics such as pregnancy, birth (including complications that can arise such as stillbirth, diabetes, birth trauma), becoming a parent, perinatal mental health, parent-infant bonding, infant feeding, child development, as well as interventions to support new parents’ wellbeing. Delegates also heard about health professionals’ experiences of birth trauma, and the impact of COVID-19 on women’s perinatal experiences.

2020 was also the 40th Anniversary of the Society. To celebrate this, the conference opened with the SRIP 40th Anniversary Award keynote by Professor Fiona Alderdice, from the University of Oxford. Professor Alderdice gave a powerful and insightful lecture entitled ‘Making sense of complexity’, setting the scene for much of the conference in highlighting the complexities of reproductive health and perinatal experiences. The talk also explored the evolution of the field in the past 40 years, the tools and approaches used to study it as well as the interventions to support families.

Complexity was also at the centre of Professor Yael Benyamini’s keynote. Awarded the SRIP 2021 Lecturer Award, Prof Benyamini from Tel Aviv University, gave an impassioned talk on ‘Childbirth: Between Expectancies and Experiences’ underlining women’s multiple and idiosyncratic birth experiences. The talk also examined the gap between women’s expectations and their lived experiences, and unpicked factors that contribute to this, such as women’s desire for control over the mode of delivery and/or its environment.

The final keynote lecture was delivered by Professor Alan Stein, from the University of Oxford, who was awarded the SRIP 2020 Lecturer Award. His talk, entitled ‘The influence of perinatal depression on child development: mechanisms and a global perspective’, was a brilliant expose of the mechanisms by which perinatal depression negatively impacts upon children’s cognitive, social, and behavioural development, as well as a powerful plea to prevent its negative but avoidable effects. Professor Stein’s talk also made a convincing case for adopting a more global approach to perinatal depression, as rates of perinatal depression in low- and middle-income countries are significantly higher than in high-income countries.

Conference delegates were also treated to fascinating talks by SRIP prize winners. These included Dr Emma Jones, SRIP 2020 Doctoral Prize winner, who delivered an insightful talk on bereavement following stillbirth ‘Continuing bonds: Parents’ experience of an ongoing relationship with their stillborn baby’, and Sergio Silverio, SRIP 2020 Masters Prize winner, an equally worthy winner for his work on antenatal anxiety ‘Anxiety and the Antenatal Clinic – The Nine Month Wait’. The SRIP 2021 Doctoral Prize was awarded to Dr Claire Wilson for her impressive work on the impact of gestational diabetes upon mothers and babies ‘Is Gestational Diabetes Associated with Adverse Maternal and Child Mental Health Outcomes?’ Finally, the SRIP 2021 Masters Prize went to Mathilde Duroux, for her excellent and promising work on prenatal perceived support ‘Investigating prenatal perceived support as a protective factor against adverse birth outcomes’. Congratulations to all SRIP worthy prize winners!

Posters also took centre stage during the Conference. 41 posters were displayed throughout the conference, and three time slots, one on each of the conference days, were dedicated to poster viewing. Posters covered four themes, including ‘Perinatal physical & mental health’, ‘Care, interventions and e-tools’, ‘Parental-baby/infant relationship’ and ‘Pre-conception, conception and assisted reproduction’. Congratulations to Fabiana Monteiro for winning the Best Poster Prize for her work on a web-based intervention to promote maternal mental health among postpartum women: ‘Be a Mom’s usage, adherence and acceptability among postpartum women presenting low risk for postpartum depression’.

As in previous years, and in keeping with SRIP’s developmental mission, the early career researchers workshop took place on the morning of the conference’s opening. Opened by Dr Zoe Darwin, from the University of Huddersfield, and attended by 15 delegates, the workshop focused on ‘Future Challenges and Perspectives in Reproductive and Infant Psychology’. Building on a series of successful SRIP workshops dedicated to early career researchers, the workshop provided a supportive environment to exchange ideas, as well as an opportunity to network with peers and gain insight from more experienced researchers.

The second conference workshop was run by Professor Susan Ayers, from City, University of London, and Dr Jonathan Handelzalts, from the Academic College of Tel Aviv-Yafo. It focused on assessing birth trauma and provided the 14 delegates with practical skills to administer and score the City Birth Trauma Scale to assess PTSD and different symptom presentations.

Although the conference had moved online this year, there were opportunities for delegates to come together and network through the lounge and chat functionalities, as well as a quiz on ’40 years of SRIP’. We hope you can join us for the SRIP 42nd annual conference, which will be held on the 15th and 16th of September 2022. The conference’s location, dependent on the COVID-19 situation, will be confirmed at a later stage.