Dr Elsie Abakisi, a Senior Specialist at the Department of Psychiatry at the Tamale Teaching Hospital, has called for vigorous intervention strategies to control the surging trend of depression among pregnant women and nursing mothers.

She said research had shown that 26.8 per cent of pregnant women had Postpartum Depression (PPD), and that was quite scary because it meant one in every four women had the condition.

Dr Abakisi described Postpartum Depression in medicine as a type of condition that begins after childbirth and involves strong feelings of sadness, anxiety (worry), and tiredness (fatigue).

Dr Abakisi disclosed this in an interview with the Ghana News Agency (GNA)at Sunyani on the sidelines of a day’s training on the “Strengthening community health systems to enhance integrated people-centred HIV, TB, SRH and MHPSS for vulnerable women and adolescents in Ghana” project.

BasicNeeds-Ghana, a Non-Governmental Organisation in collaboration with the Christian Health Association of Ghana (CHAG), the Centre for People’s Empowerment and Rights Initiatives (CPRI), and the Mental Health Society of Ghana (MEHSOG) is implementing the project.

It was attended by heads of health facilities, Directors of Health, and other key staff of the Ghana Health Service (GHS) in the Bono Region.

With funding from the L’Initiative, the GHS, Ghana Mental Health Authority (MHA), Global Fund (GF), Ghana Country Coordinating Mechanism (CCM), and the Ghana AIDS Commission are the key collaborators of the 36-month project.

Dr Abakisi mentioned recurring intimate partner violence and poverty as the common risk factors of the PPD, saying women who had other underlying conditions like HIV and AIDS, as well as Tuberculosis (TB), were also prone to the condition.

She said intensified public education remained a key strategy to tackling violence against women and to bring PPD under control, and therefore called for a collective approach.

Dr Abakisi said regrettably, most women with PPD conditions normally refused to breastfeed their babies, a behaviour that impeded the holistic growth and development of children.

“Some of those children grow up, and it becomes difficult for them to interact or bond with people, and some of them also grow to become very aggressive.

“Even some of these children have delays in speech and language, and generally they perform poorly in school,” she stated.

Dr Abakisi appealed for collective stakeholder collaboration in addressing the issue because of the myriad of challenges mothers and their children could face.

Throwing more light on the project, Mr Dokurugu Yahaya, the Head of Programmes, BasicNeeds-Ghana, said the project was being implemented in seven regions in 27 communities spread across 14 districts and municipalities nationwide.

They included the Northern, North East, Savannah, Upper East, Upper West, Bono, and Greater Accra Region.

Mr Yahaha said the main objective of the project was to improve maternal and child health outcomes for the poorest and most vulnerable women and girls in the country.

Its specific objectives were strengthening community systems to deliver integrated, people-centered HIV, TB, Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH), mental health, and ensure psychosocial support services (MHPSS) during the peripartum period for women and adolescent girls living or at risk of HIV.

The project further sought to address gender-based differences and inequality in access to healthcare services and health status among pregnant and postpartum women and adolescent girls living with or at risk of HIV.