Positive Pre‐conception Partnerships: The Essential Ingredient for Good Mental Health
| Published date | 01 January 2000 |
| Date | 01 January 2000 |
| Pages | 26-32 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/17465729200000006 |
| Author | Bret Hart,Karen Cochrane,Christine Quinn |
| Subject Matter | Health & social care |
26 International Journal of Mental Health Promotion VOLUME 2 ISSUE 1 • FEBRUARY2000 © Pavilion Publishing (Brighton) Limited.
Positive Pre-conception
Partnerships: The Essential
Ingredient
for Good Mental Health
Bret Hart
North Metropolitan Health Service
Karen Cochrane,
Swan Hills Division of
General Practitioners Ltd
Christine Quinn
North Metropolitan Health Service
FEATURE
Ensuring that a child has a good startin life
requires a partnership that extends beyond that
of the parents and that precedes a child’s
conception. Sharing this vision among agencies
that have contact with marginalised young
people led to the use of an infant simulator to
attract ‘at risk’ young people into a program
that helps ensure that the choice to conceive is
not only informed but also has the potential
to promote mental health. Participants
demonstrated that they increased their
knowledge of the health and other implications
of having a baby and some took active
measures to improve their health.
ABSTRACT
‘…a good start in life has fundamental
importance in laying the foundations for resilience and vulnera-
bility to childhood and adult psychiatric disturbance’ (Newton,
1988)
Essential partnerships for a ‘good start’
Apartnership that has a crucial influence on the start in life of a
child is the relationship between the mother and father. Many stud-
ies have identified the importance of the family, cultural and social
influences upon child health, including mental health.
The following aspects of the psychosocial
environment have been found to be associated with increased risk
for the subsequent development of mental health problems in chil-
dren (Rutter, 1989a; McGuire & Earls,1991; Offord, 1987).
Outstanding among these are:
■
single-parent family status (Burghes, 1994)
■
financial hardship
■
quality of marital relationship
■
family mobility
■
ethnic minority/racial status.
In Western Australia a comprehensive survey of 2,737 West
Australian children aged 4 to 16 was
performed (Silburn et al., 1996) that concurred with some of the
above factors. From their child health survey, Silburn and colleagues
were able to conclude that children living with both parents in their
original families were found to have lower rates of mental health
problems than half the children in step/blended and one-paren t fami-
lies. The family variables found to be the most salient, irrespective of
income, in accounting for child mental health were family type, level
of family discord and parental disciplinary style. Over and above the
risks associated with low household income, children growing up in
one-parent
families had higher rates of mental health problems. Children who
were reared with a predominantly encouraging style of parenting
had substantially lower grades of mental health problems than
children whose parenting is characterised by
coercive or inconsistent discipline. Their data
confirmed that harsh forms of parental discipline, such as frequent
smacking and shouting, are
associated with elevated risks for adverse child
mental health adjustment.
These studies provide insight into the types of partnership that
need to be fostered in order to derive a good start.
Building positive parent-child partnerships
Parental health
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