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Fear of childbirth negatively affects women during pregnancy and after birth. The research was conducted to evaluate the effect of the training program provided to primiparous pregnant women through motivational interview method on fear of childbirth, childbirth self-efficacy, and delivery mode. This is a parallel-randomized controlled experimental study. 'Training Program through Motivational Interview Method for Fear of Childbirth' was applied individually to 37 pregnant women in the intervention group, once a week, for four sessions in total while 36 in the control group did not receive any intervention other than routine hospital practices. In the collection of the research data, Introductory Information Form, the Wijma Delivery Expectancy/Experience Questionnaire (W-DEQ) Versions A and B, the Childbirth Self-Efficacy Inventory-Short Form (CBSEI-SF), and the Delivery Evaluation Form were used. It was determined that the mean W-DEQ scores of those in the intervention group obtained during the 37th to 40th weeks of gestation and postpartum were lower than those in the control group. It was found that, during the 37th to 40th weeks of gestation, the intervention group's median scores for the CBSEI-SF total score, Sub-dimension of Expectation of Outcome, and Sub-dimension of Expectation of Self-Efficacy were higher than those of in the control group. There was no significant difference between the groups regarding their delivery mode. While the training program given to primiparous pregnant women through the motivational interview method was found to have reduced the fear of childbirth and increased their childbirth self-efficacy, it had no effect on the delivery mode., Author(s): Pelin Calpbinici [sup.1] , Çigdem Yücel Özçirpan [sup.2] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.449442.b, 0000 0004 0386 1930, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology Nursing, Semra and Vefa Küçük Faculty of Health [...]

Education and cognitive ability are studied as predictors of female age at first birth (AFB) among Danish twins. Variance in AFB emerges from differences between families and is located within shared environments.

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Quality Indicator tools were used to identify risk factors for maternal birth-related trauma rates in the 2003 Nationwide Inpatient Sample and the 2002-2004 [...]

Having a baby is a powerful experience that, according to attachment theory, should activate the attachment system and elicit attachment needs and motives. The current study investigated first-time parents' perceptions of and responses to events surrounding labor and delivery and early parenthood. Couples expecting their first child completed measures of attachment orientations and questionnaires assessing key aspects of the experience of labor, delivery, and early parenthood. Attachment anxiety and avoidance significantly predicted individuals' perceptions of themselves and their partners, reactions to their partners' behavior, and emotional responses to their infants. Jealousy of the infant, perceptions of support given to or received from partners, and feelings of closeness to the infant were all associated with attachment orientations in theoretically meaningful ways. Keywords: Attachment orientations; working models; parenthood; marriage; jealousy

A population-based register study is used to estimate the risk of postpartum mental disorders among new parents and also investigate whether parents in general differ from nonparents in the risk of admission with a mental disorder and how this difference varies with age. The results have shown that in Denmark, the risk of postpartum mental disorders among primiparous mothers increased for many months after childbirth, but among fathers there is no excess of severe mental disorders necessitating admission or outpatient contacts.

How is the transition to parenthood constructed in a context in which fatherhood and motherhood are therapeutically defined? Relying on ethnographic observations of 66 expectant and new parent couples assigned to 13 different parent educator-led groups, we show how, with the arrival of a baby, a sense of transition is crafted and often amplified. Our analysis suggests that just as the overall life course is constructed through language and meaningful gesture, so also the transition to parenthood is constructed through verbal and nonverbal signification. Using a vocabulary of contrast and change, parent edu-cators and expectant and new parents create a collective feeling that they are witnessing a transformation of major proportions. By emphasizing the idea that things are no longer the same, parent educators also establish themselves as authorities whose job it is to steer fathers and mothers through unfamiliar terrain. For their part, expectant and new parents not only listen to but often also replicate the parent educators' vocabularies and, in so doing, further magnify distinctions between before parenthood and after, and between one stage of parenthood and another. Childbirth stands uncomfortably at the junction of the two worlds of nature and culture. Like death and disease it is a biological event, but the defining feature of biological events in human life is their social character. Ann Oakley (1980:7)

Sixty-two daughters provided narratives of their births and completed measures of self-esteem and mother-daughter attachment. Thirty-three of their mothers provided independent accounts of the births. Daughters who had heard the stories of their births more times wrote more descriptive and positive accounts and showed higher self-esteem and stronger attachment to their mothers than daughters who had heard the stories less often. Positivity of the mothers' narratives was correlated with daughters' self-esteem while descriptiveness of the mothers' narratives was correlated with daughters' levels of mother-daughter attachment. Raters blind to the identity of mothers and daughters made more successful matches between mothers' and daughters' stories for daughters with higher self-esteem and attachment. Keywords Birth stories * Narrative identity * Self-esteem * Mother-daughter attachment

The weeks following the birth of a child can be stressful for new mothers. Maternal stress may be increased when mothers are dissatisfied with instrumental partner support (e.g., division of childcare duties and family decision-making power). The purpose of the current study was to determine if there is an association between dissatisfaction with partner support and maternal stress in the postpartum period, and to examine whether that association is mediated by demand-withdraw communication between partners. Participants were 49 women who completed questionnaires about satisfaction with partner support, female demand/male withdraw communication in their relationship, and their own perceived stress approximately 8 weeks after giving birth. Findings support the hypothesis that demand-withdraw communication mediates the association between dissatisfaction with partner support and maternal stress. This finding suggests that fathers' withdrawal in the context of mothers' requests for discussion of change appears to be associated with increased levels of maternal stress.

Objective: In a previous study, we found that new mothers could and would express concerns about their parenting, including concerns about maltreatment and poor care. In this study, we examine the utility of early maternal concerns for predicting parenting stress in the first year. Parenting stress is important because it has been shown to be related to maltreatment and poor parent-child relationships. Method: A sample of 246 mothers were interviewed shortly after delivery in a publicly funded hospital about their parenting concerns, and 93% were reinterviewed in their homes about their parenting when the infants were 6 to 12 months old. Standardized measures with demonstrated psychometric properties were employed, including a measure of parenting stress due to the demands of the parenting role, characteristics of the child that make him or her difficult to care for, and stress due to difficult interactions. Results: Multiple regression results indicate that both mothers concerns at delivery and sociodemographic variables are significant predictors of all three types of parenting stress in infancy. Maternal concerns were more powerful than sociodemographics in predicting stress related to the demands of parenting, while sociodemographics were more powerful for the prediction of stress related to difficult child characteristics and difficult mother-infant interaction. Conclusions: These findings suggest that knowledge of new mothers' parenting concerns might be useful for predicting parenting problems, as well as for engaging mothers in and enhancing the effectiveness of parenting services. [c] 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Mother; Parenting stress; Parent-child

Despite the myriad psychosocial aspects of childbirth, psychologists have not contributed extensively to the childbirth literature nor are they identified as a resource for women who are either anticipating or adjusting after an inherently challenging life event. The purpose of this article is to review the current literature on psychosocial aspects of birthing to identify a variety of issues that would be of relevance to psychotherapists. We discuss both normative issues such as women's fears or concerns about giving birth as well as clinical issues such as traumatic birth experiences and complications for women with psychological disorders. Finally, we provide specific suggestions for practitioners so that they are better able to work with women and their partners during this pivotal time in their lives. We argue that psychotherapists are in an ideal position to provide women, particularly those at risk for adverse outcomes, with the support and skills necessary to prepare for, cope during, and adjust after the challenge of giving birth. KEYWORDS. Psychotherapists, pregnancy, birthing, traumatic birth, PTSD

In this paper, I analyze how different didactic discourses surrounding pregnancy, birth, and postpartum care portray time in procreative events. I investigate advice regarding procreative experiences offered to women by a variety of 'experts', and offered by experts to each other, examining literature which demonstrates the wide range of didactic approaches to procreative events that are accessible in US culture, from masculinist medical orthodoxy--the dominant perspective--to the naturalist/feminist midwifery model, with self-help literature reflecting the influence of both ends of this spectrum as well as of consumer-oriented health activism. I explore how the conceptualization of time in the medical discourse contributes to the overpowering or disempowering of procreating women, and how the self-help and midwifery approaches respond to the medical model--ranging on a continuum from reification to refutation. Obstetrics works on women's bodies to make them stay on time and on course; this quest becomes more obsessively time-focused over time. In contrast, the midwifery discourse centers on women active in time, rather than against it. Self-help book authors line up somewhere in the middle, mostly taking medical management of procreative time for granted and occasionally try to show women ways in which we can buy time or bide our time against medicine. Keywords: Procreative discourses; Childbirth; Midwifery; Obstetrics; Pregnancy; Procreation

The author examines the attitudes of Australian adolescents concerning consequences of pregnancy and parenthood. Topics include idealised beliefs, sexual behaviors, and disillusionment.

This article investigates the relationship between schizophrenia and place of birth and residence. Topics include family history, seasonal variation, and psychoses.

This study examines the determinants of changes in job satisfaction for childbearing women who return to their jobs following childbirth. By using longitudinal data, this research is able to determine the direction and causes of changes in satisfaction that accompany the return to work. We find first that declines in job satisfaction routinely accompany the birth of a child. However, several family and workplace characteristics help to alleviate the decline in job satisfaction. In addition, we find that the determinants of job satisfaction appear to change following childbirth, which will be key in future research examining this issue.

4 mothers' skillful use of verbal and nonverbal behaviors to their first and second children was examined while each mother was playing with them for about one year after the birth of the second child. Analysis showed that maternal verbal interactions with the firstborn were frequently accompanied by nonverbal interactions toward the secondborn, especially during the first few months postpartum. The concurrent use of verbal and nonverbal behaviors with the two children may be a behavioral strategy for the mother to adjust to the birth of the second child.