Anxieties of the New Mother During the First Month After Birth and Their Relationship to Assistance Given by Her Own Mother

An Analysis of Her Own Mother's Attitude in Assisting Her

Abstract

Our study was conducted with the purpose of clarifying, when it is the woman's own mother who assists her after childbirth, 1) what the postpartum woman's anxieties are during the first month after birth, and 2) what the relationship is between these anxieties and her own mother's attitude in assisting her in taking care of her child. During home visits 2-3 days after discharge from the hospital and again at 2-3 weeks after the birth, we surveyed 20 primipara, who had given birth in private hospitals in Tokyo, and their mothers.
Our results showed that all of the postpartum women had some anxieties. Responses to the first of the two surveys, identified 127 anxieties. Of these, 100 were regarding the newborn, the majority of which (67) concerned childcare techniques. We also found the women's mothers' attitudes in giving assistance fell into 3 different categories: 1) supportive of her daughter's ideas but ready to intervene if she deemed it absolutely necessary, 2) completely laissezfaire, due to a lack of confidence in her own ideas, and 3) aggressive in trying to assert her own ideas on her daughter. The actual occurrence of what the postpartum woman had feared seemed to derive not only from the attitude of her mother, but also from other factors such as how the woman handled advice from her mother, how she interpreted childcare books, and what her previous experience had been in taking care of children.
After discharge from the hospital, women had various anxieties. The fact that there were many cases in which the assistance offered by the woman's mother did not alleviate her anxieties indicates that women need continuous support from professionals such as midwives ever after leaving the hospital.