Postpartum Mental Health among Visible and Invisible Sexual Minority Women

No studies have evaluated the impact of “minority stress” on the mental health of lesbian, bisexual and queer (LBQ) women during the first postpartum year, a time of particular vulnerability to depression. While a very small body of research has focused on mental health in new LBQ moms, these studies focus specifically on visible sexual minority women – that is, women who identify as lesbian or bisexual and who are partnered with other women. Our preliminary data indicates that invisible sexual minority women (i.e., women who have a history of sexual relationships with women, but who are currently partnered with men) are at elevated risk for postpartum depression, compared to visible sexual minority women and heterosexual women. Our project aims to build upon this work and understand these differences.

This was a multi-site, international, (Toronto, Canada, and Boston, US) study that included surveys with visible sexual minority women, invisible sexual minority women, and heterosexual women to better understand the mental health of these three groups. We wanted to collect rich and nuanced data about the experiences of our invisible sexual minority sample in particular, since these women are often left out of research on sexual minority women. To do this, participants in this group were invited to complete 4 semi-structured interviews, 1-2 hours long. These one-on-one interviews touched on themes such as pregnancy experiences, social support, disclosure of sexual orientation, experiences of discrimination, connection to community, mental health and health care experiences.

To learn more about this study and our findings, please visit our project-specific website Queering Parenthood.

Team:

• Principal Investigators: Abbie Goldberg & Lori Ross

• Postdoctoral research fellow: Corey Flanders

• Meet the rest of the team

Learn More:

Email: l.ross@utoronto.ca

Funding:

This project was funded by the National Institute of Health.

Project Outcomes:

• Please visit our Queering Parenthood website for updates on the project outcomes.

Publications from the project so far include:

• Characterizing non-monosexual women at risk for poor mental health outcomes: A mixed methods study

• Plurisexual women's sexual and relationship history trajectories across the lifespan: A focus on pregnancy

• Male-partnered bisexual women's perceptions of disclosing sexual orientation to family across the transition to parenthood: Intensifying heteronormativity or queering family?

• Male-partnered sexual minority women: Sexual identity disclosure to health care providers during the prenatal period

• An account from the inside: Emotional implications of ‘insider’ qualitative research

• Bisexuality: The Invisible Sexual Orientation in Sexual and Reproductive Health Care

Other Related Resources

• Perinatal Experiences of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender People. (In press inWenzel, A. & Stuart, S. (Eds.), Handbook of Perinatal Psychology. Oxford University Press).

• Celebrating the ‘other’ parent: Mental health and wellness of expecting lesbian, bisexual and queer non-birth parents.

• Where is the ‘B’ in LGBT parenting? A call for research on bisexual parenting.

• A queer parenting website