engleski

Predictors of Postpartum-Specific Stress in Mothers During the First Year After Childbirth

Perception in society is that childbirth is a happy event and that mothers should only feel blessed and fulfilled. However, mothers experience biological, psychological, and social changes and increased demands regarding infant care, which can aggravate stress. Therefore, it is essential to focus on specific stress after childbirth and not general stress, but until recently, measures for postpartum stress focused on the early period or health complications. The Maternal Postpartum Stress Scale is a new measure of specific stress during the first year after childbirth. However, little is known about predictors of specific postpartum stress in mothers. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the predictors of specific postpartum stress during the first year after childbirth. During the first postpartum year, 603 mothers participated in the online cross-sectional study. Participants filled in the Maternal Postpartum Stress Scale (MPSS), which has three subscales: Personal needs and fatigue, Infant nurturing, and Body changes, and sexuality. They also filled in the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS), the Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire (PBQ), and the Postnatal Negative Thoughts Questionnaire (PNTQ). In hierarchical regression analyses, criteriums were the MPSS total score and three subscales, while predictors were parity, infant’s health complications, mother-infant bonding, negative postpartum thoughts, postpartum depression, and anxiety symptoms. Results showed that Anxiety about care and maternal distress, as a dimension of mother-infant bonding, and postpartum depression symptoms were predictors of the higher total score and the three dimensions of the postpartum specific stress. Also, being a primiparous mother and having an infant with health complications predicted elevated stress regarding infant nurturing. These findings address the importance of a wide range of maternal mental health states, including postpartum specific stress. Psychoeducational prevention and intervention programs should be offered, especially to primiparous mothers, focusing on infant care and coping with distress.

stress, postpartum, mother-infant bonding, negative postpartum thoughts, postpartum mental health

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