Can experiences of mental health following childbirth help those currently suffering with perinatal mental health issues

There are many mental health disorders that affect women within their pregnancy or the year following the birth of their child, these are defined as perinatal mental health disorders. This thesis aims to explore how maternal narratives of perinatal mental health in peer-to-peer resources can be useful tools for improving the lives of mothers suffering with mental health issues. The following research questions will be addressed:
RQ1: What narratives of maternal mental health are offered via peer-to-peer resources? And do these help counter mental health stigmas?
RQ2: What role does narrative sharing perform for mothers who use their own experiences of perinatal mental health to help others?
RQ3: How do mothers who are suffering from mental health issues use the narratives of others to improve their own mental health?
Current government policies that have already been proposed are centred around the aim to make sure people's mental health are looked after as well as their physical health. As will be explored, perinatal mental health not only causes psychological, social, and emotional issues for mothers, it can also cause long lasting physical and emotional damage for their infants. Both of these vast difficulties cause financial damage to an already struggling National Health Service and a chronically underfunded and dwindling Early Childhood Service.
Using letters from 'The Letters of Light' project founded by Olivia Siegl, an in-depth qualitative approach will be utilised in order to shed new light on women's experiences of perinatal mental health and the support on offer. In order to gain a more complete appreciation of the experiences and support offered within peer-to-peer narratives, as well as an understanding as to why women who are no longer suffering chose to dig up potentially difficult memories for the sake of others, thematic analysis of the letters and analysis of online surveys requesting feedback on the scheme from the women who wrote the letters, the mothers that received them and the mother and baby units, NHS trusts, Homestart and the Royal College of Midwifery who are also using the project to support the women in their care.
Mental health disorders are already an under researched area in the sociology of reproduction, and following the past 6 months of global, national and local lockdowns due to Covid-19 there has been an additional decline in face-to-face social networks and support services. The findings from this project will aim to show have mental health disorders affects maternal identity and how, in increasingly remote and digital times, peer support can help manage this. Accordingly, this thesis will endeavour to contribute to sociological knowledge and shed new light on women's experiences of pregnancy and motherhood in the 21st Century and produce an NHS guide, in cooperation with health practitioners, about the potential that peer-to-peer narratives offer in relation to PMH.
From the onset this thesis will be written reflexively from the perspective of a postnatal depression survivor. Thus, alongside the analysis of perinatal mental health narratives written by other mothers; this thesis will use autoethnography to analyse my own perinatal mental health story.