Mental health problems during and immediately after pregnancy are a major concern across the world. As well as affecting the health of the mother, they can have significant, harmful, and long term effects on the infant if not dealt with effectively. Perinatal Psychiatry honours the work of Channi Kumar, one of the seminal figures in the history of perinatal psychiatry, and presents a comprehensive multidisciplinary review of the field. Bringing together the leading researchers in the area, it covers the causes of perinatal mental health problems, the biology of perinatal depression and its more extreme form, puerperal psychosis, as well as psychosocial and psychological interventions, hormonal and neural substrates of perinatal depression, and risk factors and epidemiology.

Depression is a major cause of morbidity throughout the world. Given that between 8 and 12% of the population (in most countries) will suffer from depression at some point in their lives, it is clearly a significant public health problem. As our knowledge of this illness has expanded in recent years, it has become clear that depression can no longer be viewed as a simple disorder of the brain. It has to be seen as a series of behavioural and biological changes that span mind, brain, genes, and body - indeed affecting both psychological and physical health. This book brings together world leaders in research on depression, to discuss, for the first time, in an interdisciplinary setting, both classical and innovative ideas to understand this devastating disorder. It presents neurobiological, psychological, genetic and evolutionary models, with a particular emphasis on the mechanisms linking the brain to the endocrine and the immune systems, and therefore linking depression to physical health. Opening with a powerful, personal, account of depression, that conveys something of the all-consuming, debilitating, nature of this illness, the book then presents cutting edge research from those at the frontiers of work in this area. The book will be valuable for all psychiatrists, clinical psychologists and neuroscientists seeking a state-of-the-art of this global problem