The Politics of Women's Perinatal Mental Health Governance

Perinatal mental health is explored in this thesis by examining the knowledge and strategies shaping current policies in Australia and the implications of these for individual women and their perceptions about themselves and their lifestyles as they are becoming mothers. Four autobiographical books by women about their experience of depression after they had babies are used as qualitative data. To analyse these books, this study uses the theories of Michel Foucault (1990). The study highlights how perinatal mental health knowledge and strategies are political and how they construct women in the perinatal life stage in political ways.