Advancing the right to perinatal mental health through feminist jurisprudence: A narrative review.

Women are at a heightened risk of mental health conditions during the entire perinatal period, and are recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a vulnerable population group. Perinatal mental disorders (PMDs) are associated with profound health-related and intergenerational consequences for mothers, infants, and families, yet remain an underprioritized public health concern within healthcare and legal frameworks. This consistent neglect undermines the recognition of perinatal mental health (PMH) as an integral part of women's reproductive rights and the right to health. In patriarchal societies, social determinants of health (SDOH) such as gendered norms and imbalanced power relationships operate in multiplicative and syndemic ways, shaping both the onset of PMDs and women's access to care and treatment. This narrative review demonstrates that sole reliance on a biomedical approach obscures the structural and gendered dimensions of PMDs, resulting in legal and institutional desertion. Since PMDs largely represent gender-based health needs, this paper argues that the right to PMH constitutes an autonomous, enforceable human right grounded in feminist jurisprudence, demonstrating that the gender-neutrality of health laws results in substantive discrimination against perinatal women. Drawing on interdisciplinary feminist theories, the paper novelly integrates feminist jurisprudence with clinical and public health perspectives to reconceptualize PMH. It proposes an interdisciplinary framework to facilitate law reforms, judicial interpretations, and the development of perinatal healthcare guidelines and protocols that are responsive to women's PMH needs and structural inequalities.