Navigating perinatal mental health care: migrant women's experiences of support pathways and the role of digital resources.

BACKGROUND

Migrant women experience disproportionately high rates of perinatal mental health difficulties, shaped by intersecting cultural, social, and systemic barriers. Despite the increasing role of digital technologies in healthcare delivery, their potential to support equitable perinatal mental health care remains underexplored and often fails to reflect the complex realities of migrant women's lives. This study examined how women from migrant backgrounds in Australia navigate perinatal mental health care across clinical, community, and digital settings, with a particular focus on how digital tools interact with cultural, social, and structural factors to influence help-seeking and engagement.

METHODS

Qualitative data were collected through online focus groups and individual interviews with women from Chinese-, Arabic-, and Indian-language speaking backgrounds who had given birth in Australia. A semi-structured, culturally adapted interview guide explored women's experiences of mental health support, barriers and facilitators to access, cultural beliefs, and the role of digital tools in finding/interpreting information. Interviews were conducted with interpreter support and analysed using reflexive thematic analysis to identify patterns across women's narratives.

RESULTS

Three overarching themes, each with related subthemes, were developed: (1) Accessing Perinatal Care captured fragmented systems and difficulties navigating services that felt culturally unresponsive; (2) Cultural and Socio-Emotional Context of Mental Health reflected how stigma, traditional beliefs, and disrupted family networks shaped women's emotional wellbeing, help-seeking, and comfort disclosing distress; and (3) Support Seeking illustrated how women turned to digital platforms for connection, and guidance but were constrained by language barriers, and varying levels of digital literacy and access.

CONCLUSIONS

Migrant women navigate fragmented perinatal mental health pathways shaped by cultural, social, and structural barriers. Digital tools can support help-seeking, but only when designed to address cultural relevance, language needs, and digital inequities. Equity-focused, co-designed approaches are essential to ensure digital solutions genuinely enhance perinatal mental health care for migrant women.