Welcome to the 22nd WCP Congress Program Scheduling

The physical and mental health of women prior to conception can have a significant impact on pregnancy and child outcomes. Indeed this period presents an opportunity to intervene to optimise the health of women and their children, although the impact of physical and mental multimorbidity prior to pregnancy on maternal and child outcomes is not well documented. Inequalities in the physical and mental health of women of reproductive age are also poorly understood. In this symposium, we will discuss initiatives to build a picture of the preconception health of people of reproductive age. Firstly, Danielle Schoenaker will present findings from the first annual report card on (inequalities in) preconception health in England, and discuss the use of linked routine health datasets for ongoing national surveillance and for causal analysis to examine the impact of preconception health on maternal and child outcomes. Raquel Catalao will discuss ethnic inequalities in mental and physical multimorbidity in primary care at the preconception stage. Elizabeth Spry will discuss the extent to which well-established associations between perinatal maternal mental health and child development reflect causal effects, or potential confounding by underlying common causes. Finally, Claire Wilson will present findings on the physical-mental health interface of 131,181 women completing an online preconception tool. We will consider and discuss with the audience the implications of the findings for those working in both adult and child psychiatry and propose a paradigm shift away from the presumed causal primacy within epidemiology of in-utero exposures.