Mothers’ perceptions of their 6-week-old babies: relationships with antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal factors

Green, J. M., Richards, M. P. M., Kitzinger, Jenny ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2593-8033 and Coupland, V. A. 1991. Mothers’ perceptions of their 6-week-old babies: relationships with antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal factors. IRISH JOURNAL OF PSYCHOLOGY 12 (2) , pp. 133-144. 10.1080/03033910.1991.10557833

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Abstract

As part of a prospective study of mothers’ expectations and experiences of childbirth using postal questionnaires, an adjective checklist was employed as a means of eliciting mothers’ descriptions of their babies at 6 weeks of age. Associations between descriptions of the baby and antenatal, intrapartum and postnatal factors were investigated in a sample of 710 women. The measure derived from the checklist had considerable face validity, being closely related to the perception of the baby as a social person and as knowing the mother. Mothers who were finding life disorganised and those with low emotional well-being were most negative about their babies. One of the major factors associated with the way the baby was described was parity, with first-time mothers being much more negative than those who had had a baby before. Breast-feeding was also associated with negative descriptions, with women who had given up breast-feeding by 6 weeks after the birth giving the most negative descriptions.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Journalism, Media and Culture
Subjects:	B Philosophy. Psychology. Religion > BF Psychology H Social Sciences > HQ The family. Marriage. Woman R Medicine > RG Gynecology and obstetrics
Publisher:	Routledge
ISSN:	0303-3910
Last Modified:	25 Oct 2022 08:55
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/56441

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