This book explores the hidden impact of disasters on pregnant women and their unborn children, revealing how events like floods, bushfires, and earthquakes can trigger maternal stress responses that shape fetal development and extend across generations. Drawing from landmark studies such as the Queensland Flood Study and Hurricane Sandy cohort, it combines compelling human stories with rigorous scientific evidence from fields like perinatal psychiatry and developmental epigenetics.

Key concepts include disaster-exposure measurement, placental transcriptomic analysis, and cortisol regulation, with a focus on the critical first 1,000 days of life. The book highlights the gap between WHO and Lancet recommendations on climate-linked mental health and their implementation in disaster planning. Unique features include practical toolkits for clinicians and policymakers, ensuring complex science is both engaging and relevant.

Aftershocks in the Womb is essential for researchers, practitioners, and policymakers seeking to integrate perinatal mental health into disaster preparedness. It offers a consolidated synthesis of current evidence and deployable strategies, illuminating the intergenerational consequences of unaddressed maternal stress and providing solutions to safeguard future generations in an era of increasing climate extremes.

Dr. Minnat Seema

Health Economist & Researcher
Griffith University | Queensland Health

Strategic, results-driven Health Economist, Evaluation Specialist, and Development Economist with more than 15 years of experience across government, healthcare, research, and consulting environments. Her work focuses on health economics, health service evaluation, maternal mental health, disaster impacts, cost-effectiveness analysis, and evidence-informed policy. She has led and contributed to a range of research, evaluation, and health system improvement initiatives, including projects within Queensland Health. Her expertise spans economic evaluation, health service performance analysis, mental health systems, and data-driven policy design, with a proven ability to build high-impact collaborations and deliver evidence-based strategies that improve health outcomes.

Dr. Clifford Afoakwah
Senior Research Fellow – Health Economics
Australian Centre for Health Services Innovation (AusHSI), QUT & Jamieson Trauma Institute

Dynamic health economist and researcher with a strong foundation in applied economics, econometric analysis, health services systems, and trauma-related outcomes. Currently positioned at the intersection of health services innovation and trauma surveillance in partnership with the Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital.

Professor Joshua Byrnes
Centre for Applied Health Economics, School of Medicine, Griffith University

Professor Joshua Byrnes is a leading health economist with over 14 years of experience in economic evaluation, health policy analysis, and outcomes research. He has played a pivotal role in shaping Australian health policy, including plain packaging tobacco legislation, pregnancy warning labels on alcohol, and opt-out arrangements for the MyHealth Record. He is the current President of the Australian Health Economics Society and past Australian President of ISPOR