The role of self-esteem on fear of childbirth and birth experience
Objective: Fear of childbirth (FOC), also referred to as tokophobia, can have detrimental consequences for a woman’s well-being during pregnancy and for their subjective birth experience. However, it is unknown what role self-esteem plays in the relationship between FOC and the experience of childbirth. This study investigates the relation between FOC and the birth experience, and the role of selfesteem in that relation. Methods: We studied 125 nulliparous and parous Finnish women from their third trimester of pregnancy to 4–8 weeks postpartum. Path analysis with MLR estimation was conducted using MPlus to predict the childbirth experience according to prior self-esteem and fear of childbir…
“I feel many contradictory emotions” : Finnish mothers' discursive struggles with motherhood
Objective The aim of the study was to facilitate the understanding and interpretation of multiple aspects of working with mothers by examining Finnish mothers' mothering discourses and the interplay among these discourses. Background According to relational dialectics theory, discourses are systems of meaning that are coproduced in interaction. Although discursive research on motherhood has identified various discourses, research on the interplay among competing motherhood discourses is in its infancy. Method Qualitative questionnaire data from 479 Finnish mothers of infants were analyzed using contrapuntal analysis. Mothers' responses to three open-ended questions were analyzed inductively…
Self-Esteem, Socially Prescribed Perfectionism, and Parental Burnout
AbstractSocially prescribed perfectionism (SPP) has been shown to be a risk factor for parental burnout (Sorkkila & Aunola, 2020). In the present study, we investigated the moderating role of self-esteem in this association. A total of 479 Finnish mothers of infants filled in questionnaires measuring their self-esteem, SPP, and symptoms of parental burnout. The results of structural equation modelling (SEM) showed that mothers’ self-esteem moderated the effect of SPP on parental burnout: Mothers with high self-esteem were at lower risk of showing burnout symptoms even when SPP co-occurred, whereas for mothers with low self-esteem, the effect of SPP on burnout symptoms was further streng…
Passing the test of motherhood? Self‐esteem development and birth experience in the transition to motherhood : A longitudinal mixed methods study in Finland
Aims To investigate women's childbirth experiences and their relation to self-esteem development in the postpartum year. Design A mixed methods study. Methods Women (N = 125) completed survey questionnaires regarding their self-esteem and childbirth experiences at three time points in 2020–2021: third trimester of pregnancy (T1), 4–8 weeks postpartum (T2) and 1 year postpartum (T3). The survey results were analysed using qualitative thematic and quantitative path analyses with latent change factors. The open-ended answers of the women who demonstrated a change in self-esteem between T2 and T3 were then compared. The STROBE checklist was used as the reporting guideline. Results The quantitat…