Shifting Landscapes: Immigrant Women and Postpartum Depression

Abstract

Utilizing an ethnographic narrative approach, we explored in the Canadian context the experiences of three groups of first-generation Punjabi-speaking, Cantonese-speaking, and Mandarin-speaking immigrant women with depression after childbirth. The information emerging from women's narratives of their experiences reveals the critical importance of the sociocultural context of childbirth in understanding postpartum depression. We suggest that an examination of women's narratives about their experiences of postpartum depression can broaden the understanding of the kinds of perinatal supports women need beyond health care provision and yet can also usefully inform the practice of health care professionals.

Notes

According to census data (2001), Vancouver's immigrant community is composed of 739,000 people, with 17% of the total immigrant population having arrived in the 1990s. Asia is by far the most common area of origin, with China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India, and the Philippines accounting for 61.6% of immigrants to Vancouver (see Statistics Canada, 2003).

The BC Reproductive Mental Health Program is located in a provincial women's hospital and provides assessment, treatment, and support to women experiencing mental health problems related to reproduction, including supports specifically for postpartum depression.

Our research team consisted of a community psychologist, a registered clinical counselor working in reproductive mental health, a Mandarin-speaking Chinese researcher with a doctoral degree in education, and a Punjabi-speaking South Asian woman who was at the time of the research completing a master's degree in counseling psychology. Two colleagues also acted as advisors to the project—Lyren Chu, who has a doctoral degree in nursing, and Soma Ganesan, a psychiatrist.

The community health nurses in our study indicated, however, that they rarely have contact with women up to one year postpartum. Since community health nurses were found to be an important contact source for immigrant women, we loosened our criteria to include some women who were on antidepressants at the time of the interview, were still experiencing some depressive symptoms, or both.

Pseudonyms have been chosen in order to respect the confidentiality of participants.