Peer Support Models for Perinatal Mental Health: Implementation and Participant Experiences

Abstract

Perinatal mental health disorders, including depression and anxiety during pregnancy and postpartum, are a significant global issue of public health concern. Many of these women are not getting adequate care due to hindrances like stigma, lack of mental health care, and service integration of maternal healthcare systems. Peer support has become a potential approach that uses common lived experience to offer emotional and practical support to mothers in the perinatal period. This narrative review identifies and synthesizes the current evidence on peer support interventions in perinatal mental health, on intervention models, implementation strategies, and women lived experiences of participating. Empirical studies, systematic reviews, and qualitative research published in recent years on the topic of peer support programs to pregnant and postpartum women were reviewed. The evidence shows that peer support interventions provided in one-on-one mentoring programs, group-based programs, digital platforms, and peer-counselor models can be used to increase emotional support, social isolation, and coping among women facing perinatal mental health challenges. Qualitative research highlights that shared lived experience promotes trust, emotional validation, and normalization of maternal mental health struggles. However, variations in program design, implementation strategies, and evaluation approaches are common across studies. Peer support provides a low-cost and scalable intervention that can be used to augment current maternal mental health services. The way forward in the future would be to focus on standardized reporting, long-term outcomes assessment, and cultural responsiveness of the implementation to provide equal access and sustainability of the integration of peer support into the perinatal healthcare systems.