The Impact of Inadequate Counselling on the Well-Being of Expecting Mothers

Pregnant women face different challenges daily and throughout their pregnancies and their journeys as new mothers. Mental health remains to be a big issue for pregnant women in South Africa and the entire world. This paper is aimed at mapping the existing literature on the mental health of pregnant women and the importance of counselling during pregnancy and the transition into motherhood. The author utilized a comparative analysis as a research method. Data was collected from various databases which are not more than 10 years. Purposive sampling was used to select relevant articles using keywords. The author used thematic content analysis to analyse data thematically. The study discovered that pregnant women face a lot of challenges such as having suicidal thoughts, not coping during pregnancy which leads to having miscarriages and giving birth to stillborn babies, sinking into depression, experiencing postpartum depression as well as postnatal depression which leads to killing newborns, abandoning them in hospitals, dumping them in dustbins and waste disposal sites. This paper recommends that the Department of Health prioritizes the mental health of pregnant women as much as the physical health by making it compulsory for pregnant women to see social workers during every visit to the hospital or the clinic from pregnancy until the child is at least 6 months old with the condition that the mother is coping. The study concludes that prioritizing the mental health of pregnant women and providing counselling services to them is of paramount importance.