Dr. Ja’Nya Jenoch is a health, social, and research data scientist and licensed mental health clinician. She has over thirty years of clinical, research, and teaching experience. Her primary research focuses on maternity leave, and she has been on a mission to create research that can help to inform the public and inspire policymakers to develop inclusive, life-affirming maternity leave policies.
In her upcoming book, Unequal Before Birth, she introduces the “Maternity Leave Flowchart” to highlight the algorithmic decisions that working mothers must go through before being able to take maternity leave in the United States. Her work has earned her several awards and grants. She was awarded an Early Career Fellowship from the Work and Family Researchers Network. Most recently, she was awarded an NIH clinical fellowship to research maternal mental health using AI/ML to predict postpartum risks.
In today’s Mental Health Monday post, Ja’Nya Jenoch, a licensed mental health counselor, professor, author, and health researcher, takes us through the history of maternal mental health, unpacks terms such as postpartum depression and maternal separation anxiety, and explores the complex systems and pressures that shape the experiences of many mothers.