Original articles
Multiparous women's difficulties in caring for their two children with different ages: A qualitative study of midwives' views
2023 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 139-150
Details
2023 Volume 37 Issue 2 Pages 139-150
Purpose
Multiparous women face difficulties in child caring that are different from those of primiparous women. However, there is still no adequate support environment for these multiparous women. This study aims to identify the difficulties in child caring experienced by multiparous women raising two children of different ages as perceived by midwives in order to examine the nature of support midwives must be prepared to provide.
Methods
Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine midwives with at least five years of experience in providing services for multiparous women. Data collection focused to on the difficulties in child caring for multiparous women raising two children of different ages, as perceived by the midwives through their involvement with these women. The interview data were qualitatively descriptively analyzed.
Results
The difficulties of this population, revealed six categories and thirteen subcategories. Multiparous women experienced situations where they “could not apply all of their child caring experience of the first child” in raising the second child. These women who experienced raising two children for the first time “lacked knowledge and skills to raise two children in parallel”. Further, they faced “difficulties in reconfiguring their perspective on child caring”, which they had developed through the experience of raising the first child. These new difficulties brought the mothers an “increase in the burden of child caring”, leading to an “accumulation of fatigue from raising the two children”. The analysis also showed that it was difficult for the mothers to use coping behaviors for prenatal and postnatal issues due to the “difficulty in obtaining support because they were multiparous”.
Conclusion
The findings show the difficulties in child caring unique to multiparous women. Here it is necessary for healthcare professionals to understand these difficulties and determine the need for support for multiparous women.
