About the Editor...

Introduction
Growing up, I was the stereotypical little girl. I carried my baby doll around with me wherever I
went. As soon as I was old enough, I found myself helping in the nursery at church or helping
out in my moms classroom. I also began to babysit when I was about twelve and I loved every
minute of it. Care-taking has always been a passion of mine and I feel like that directly correlates
with nursing. Since I am going into the field of nursing, it is going to be very important for me to
be mindful of my patients and their needs. I feel that being aware of possible health issues and
the background of my patients will be important in order to insure proper care.
Help me, I cant help myself.
Mental illnesses in general have been of interest to me for awhile now because Ive been around
them personally. I know that my mom suffered from depression after she had my little sister, and
she still deals with that to this day. Postpartum depression is a serious issue and has been shown
to occur in approximately 10% to 20% of women in the United States within 6 months of
delivery according to LJ Miller in Postpartum Depression. All mental illnesses are known to
have some pretty negative effects on peoples lives in general, and to bring pregnancy into that
complicates things even more than one can imagine. Having to deal with hardships and difficult
living situations while pregnant increases a mothers chances of severe health problems such as
eclampsia and gestational diabetes (Hendrick 142). There is also an increase in low birth weight,
stillbirth and even fetal death for the fetus in such pregnancies for schizophrenic mothers in
particular (Hendrick 143).
The research that I conducted on mental illness and pregnancy was not very surprising to me,
and I feel the best way to understand an issue like this is through someones personal story.
Something so firsthand can better demonstrate the intense struggles shared by the mentally ill
person and those around them. In Disability and Mothering: Liminal Spaces of Embodied
Knowledge, Whitney struggled through life dealing with a mother who was living with
schizophrenia. She never knew what to expect and constantly lived on edge. Although she did
not inherit her mothers illness, she had to learn how to live with it. I hope my readers guide will
shed a new light on the effect mental illness can have on the children of women who are living
with such psychiatric disorders. Should women with psychiatric disorders consider not
reproducing?
Where poverty is, babies are also.
While doing research on mental illness and pregnancy, I was surprised when my research led me
to quite a few sources connecting the ideas of poverty and pregnancy. I had not previously
thought about poverty as a social factor to consider in this readers guide, but I was able to find
so much interesting information about it. Before doing my research, I had never realized just
how influential home life can be on a pregnant woman. The article Poverty, Near-Poverty, and
Hardship Around the Time of Pregnancy(Source 6) mentions that studies done on pregnancy and
poverty have, linked stressful experiences or physiologic markers of stress during pregnancy to
preterm birth or low birth weight. I also thought that by including Sarahs story, which is a
personal story highlighting pregnancy and poverty in Americas heartland, my readers would be
able to better visualize just how much of an issue it really is.

Poor people; Sick minds; New life.

Pregnancy is a very complicated process and can be influenced by things like mental illness and
poverty as well as so many other aspects of society. Because I found these two ideas connected, I
decided to consider the influence of both mental illness and poverty on pregnant women.
Through this readers guide, and the order in which I placed my sources, I hope the reader is able
to construct their own view on the ever-growing relationships between pregnancy, poverty, and
mental illness.
I also want this readers guide to clearly show this connection that I found between all three of
these ideas- pregnancy, poverty, and mental illness - because they have been found to be closely
related to each other. They all have a sort of domino effect. No matter which factor you start
with, they all seem to react and result in the others.I believe that each factor is codependent on
the others and that they can all work together to create negative experiences for everyone in close
relation. In fact, all of these issues are often times a result of one of the others. Source eight
discusses how support is necessary throughout pregnancy. If a woman lived in poverty, there is a
good chance that she is lacking the support she needs to have a healthy pregnancy. Living in
poverty like I mentioned before increases a mothers chances of being diagnosed with various
psychiatric disorders and adding pregnancy to that only complicates the situation. I myself have
found answers to questions such as: Does continuing poverty increase a womans chance of
mental illness during pregnancy? Does mental illness during pregnancy often times lead to
poverty? I hope my readers are able to form their own answers to these questions and many
more.
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