[Postpartum adjustment of women who were home during the "traditional Chinese one month postpartum period of confinement" and those who were in maternity care centers].

The purpose of this study was to explore the difference in postpartum adjustment between women who were at home for there "doing the month" and those who stayed in a maternity care center. A repeated measures design was conducted, with data collected at 1 and 4 weeks postpartum. A total of 120 postpartum women participated in this study. Data were analyzed by factor analysis to determine the relationships within categories of postpartum strssors and depression. Then, the data were analyzed by 2 x 2 repeated measure MANOVA to determine the variations among groups and time. The results indicated that women who were in maternity centers for the "doing the month" perceived significantly higher stress than did the home group, and that women perceived higher stress at 4 weeks postpartum than at 1 week postpartum. Factor analysis of the data defined four categories of postpartum stress. It was found that women at maternity care centers perceived significantly higher stress from factors named, "stress from lacking of support system" and "stress from identifying maternal role". In addition, women doing the month at maternity care centers showed significantly higher depression level than women doing the month at home. However, there is no significant difference in postpartum stress and postpartum depression between time 1 (1 week postpartum) and time 2 (4 weeks postpartum).