DIEP‘s independent research programme aims to address potential missing links in mainstream studies of pregnancy, birth and new parenthood experiences. Below is an outline of DIEP‘s current areas of focus.
If you are an academic or independent researcher and would like to contribute, please apply to join DIEP‘s team of Research Fellows. We are interested in work that either underpins or refutes aspect of the premises and questions outlined below. Please note that we are only able to consider evidence based research.
1. DETECTION vs PREVENTION; SHIFTING PERINATAL MENTAL HEALTH POLICY
Early parenthood is now identified by many people as one of the most stressful and isolating periods in life. A major international study recently concluded that 20% of mothers and at least 10% of new fathers currently suffer from post-natal depression.
In the UK, the Mental Health Foundation reported...Read More »
2. PRIORITISING THE PROSPERITY OF PARENTHOOD; A MATTER OF CHOICE?
Advertising executives have known for decades that there are few words more effective than ‘self-worth’, ‘empowerment’ and ‘free choice’ in making Western women sit up and listen. Every time they and their partners now read these words in magazines, on billboards, during commercial breaks or while they...Read More »
3. LIFE BEYOND SURVIVING BIRTH; A CLINICAL CONUNDRUM
As soon as a Western woman announces to a doctor that she is pregnant, she finds herself subjected to invasive medical tests, check-ups, scans and examinations, which indiscriminately and repeatedly question her own mental...Read More »
4. UNDER WRAPS; ART AND THE MATERNAL/PATERNAL
For more than fifty years now, artists have made powerful work and writers/academics have published persuasive research that reveals the dichotomy between the lived experience of pregnancy, birth and new parenthood and its lack of representation in popular culture.
Still, in the 21st century, much of this work...Read More »