COVID and Perinatal Mental Health 2023: Lessons Learnt and Future Directions for Research

It has been three years since many countries around the world were sent into a nationwide lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. As the disease infected many people across the world, there were other adverse effects that came with not only the disease itself but also the aftermath of the lockdowns. This Research Topic aims to highlight work focused on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on perinatal mental health, with a special emphasis on lessons learned from COVID-19 and insights for future pandemics, in the hope that the research presented will translate to best practice applications in clinical and public health settings.

We invite researchers to submit a range of articles, including:

• Original Research
• Meta-analysis
• Systematic review
• Narrative review
• Scoping review
• Integrative review
• Methods
• Case study
• Brief report

This Research Topic aims to provide new evidence on the following:

• The impact of COVID-19 on perinatal mental health
• Long COVID in the perinatal period, e.g. risk factors, effects, diagnosis, and treatment
• The impact of lockdowns and social distancing on perinatal mental health
• The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the care and treatment of psychiatric conditions during the perinatal period

We encourage contributors to not only reflect on the challenges and successes of addressing maternal mental health during the COVID-19 pandemic but also to extrapolate these insights for the benefit of healthcare systems and policymakers in preparing for and responding to future pandemics.