Cooperative Childrearing and Maternal Mental Health during the COVID-19 Pandemic in the UK

Humans evolved as cooperative childrearers, inherently reliant on allomaternal support from kin and non-kin for successful reproduction. In WEIRD contexts, despite nuclear-family and intensive parenting norms, where fathers are key allomothers, public health literature shows that wider social support remains important for a range for postnatal health indices, including maternal mental health. The pandemic in the UK saw widespread disruption to institutional support services likely making mothers both more reliant on, and in need of, informal social support. Here I will present findings from a longitudinal ego-centric social network study, spanning the first two years of the pandemic, following the experiences of over 500 mothers in the UK who gave birth in the months running up to or shortly after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. I’ll discuss preliminary analysis exploring who helped mothers and how, the associations between access to allomothers and postnatal depressive symptoms, and future research directions.