On Being Mother and Patient
Dialectical Struggles During Medically High‐risk Pregnancy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 11276837 |
|---|---|
| Authors | J L M Mccoyd (0000-0001-8105-8690, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, corresponding author), Shari Munch (0000-0002-4491-3480, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey), Laura Curran (0000-0001-8877-397X, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey) |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 674-686 |
| Publication date | 2018-11-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Infant Mental Health Journal (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0163-9641 • E-ISSN: 1097-0355 |
| Publisher | Wiley (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1002/imhj.21744 |
| PMID | 30339725 |
| OpenAlex | W2896223796 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 34 |
Medically high‐risk pregnancy (MHRP) affects 3 to 10% (diagnosis‐dependent) of pregnant women in the United States (National Institute of Child Health Development, 2015), threatening maternal and fetal well‐being. Although mothers’ prenatal distress and mother–infant attachment after birth have been quantitatively researched, little research has examined women's lived experiences of MHRP in the United States. We examined 16 women's experiences of MHRP during hospitalization at an urban, Northeastern U.S. hospital using an interpretive phenomenological approach. Our qualitative findings provide new understanding of how women expend tremendous energy simultaneously navigating new roles of mother and patient. While negotiating these roles, they experienced dialectical struggles and uncertainty relating to emotion management, locus of control, appraisals of self/others, and relational self. Women managed these conflicts within the contexts of their emerging maternal identity, patient–provider relationships, and social relationships. Women struggled as they managed emotion, determined their level of responsibility for fetal outcomes, appraised others and themselves, and worried about how they were perceived. This amplified distress and contributed to women's emotional exhaustion, sense of being overwhelmed, and stress burden. New explication of these energy‐depleting dynamic processes underlying women's experiences of MHRP and their impact on the future mother–infant relationship is considered, and strategies for psychosocial support are identified
Developmental psychology · Distress · Interpretative phenomenological analysis · Negotiation · Psychiatry · Psychological intervention · Psychosocial · Psychotherapist · Qualitative research · Social support · Clinical Psychology · Grief, Bereavement, and Mental Health · Maternal and Perinatal Health Interventions · Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum · Psychology · Social Psychology
Maternal Stress and Preterm Birth
Becoming a Mother Versus Maternal Role Attainment
Psychological entropy
Research design
Stress, appraisal, and coping
Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis
Practicing maternal virtues prematurely
A social‐contextual understanding of concordance and discordance between maternal prenatal representations of the infant and infant–mother attachment
The good, the bad, and the ambivalent
Prenatal Changes in Parenting Self-Efficacy
Impact of Maternal Depression on Pregnancies and on Early Attachment
Maternal anxiety symptoms and mother–infant self‐ and interactive contingency
Human Nature and the Social Order
Controlling the unruly maternal body
Emotion Work, Feeling Rules, and Social Structure
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Highly cited | No |