The transition to motherhood Assessing womens subjective wellbeing

The transition to motherhood Assessing women’s subjective well-being Peter Hoffenaar Faculty of Social and Behavioural Sciences University of Amsterdam

Transition to motherhood n Major life transition § n Generally associated with increased levels of personal distress Period of reorganization and transformation Le Masters (1957): ‘‘the first child destroys the two-person or pair pattern of group interaction and forces a rapid reorganization of their life into a three-person or triangle group system’’ (p. 354) § Qualitative shifts and structural changes in women’s experiences and women’s outlook on life §

Research aims n n n Compare women’s postpartum well-being to prenatal well-being A multi-method approach to the assessment of well-being Examine changes in both the level and the content of well-being

Changes in the level of well-being n Level: How happy are you? General satisfaction with one’ life § Positive feelings § Absence of negative feelings (Diener, Oishi, and Lucas, 2003) §

Changes in the content of well-being n Content: How happy does x make you? § Changes in how women experience their daily activities § § § Compulsory activities (shopping, housework, preparing food) Active leisure (exercise, socializing, talking on the phone) Passive leisure (watching TV, non-work computer use, relaxing, and napping) Eating For example, women may come to enjoy eating less after birth if they feel the need to diet in order to prevent postpartum weight retention

Method (1) n Longitudinal study T 1: 4 weeks before estimated delivery date § T 2: 4 weeks after birth § n n n Recruited through yoga classes 19 first-time expectant mothers; age range 24 -39; majority college (36. 8%) or postgraduate degrees (47. 4%) Working full time or 4 days a week in the period before their maternity leave (84. 2%)

Method (2) n General life satisfaction § n Depression § n “How satisfied are you with your life as a whole these days? ” not satisfied at all (1) - very satisfied (4) The Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) Experienced affect Day Reconstruction Method (DRM; Kahneman et al. , 2004) § A More Efficient Alternative to Experience Sampling (ESM) § Combination of time use assessment and feeling state assessment §

Procedure n DRM protocol described in Kahneman et al. (2004) Packet 1: General life satisfaction and demographic questions § Packet 2: Diary of the previous day built up of a series of episodes § Packet 3: Key features of the episodes, including: § § § 1) the beginning and ending 2) the focal activity 3) whom they were interacting with 4) how they felt at the time (ratings of multiple affective adjectives). Packet 4: Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS)

DRM: Diary pages n Think of your day as a continuous series of scenes or episodes in a film n Try to remember each episode in detail, and write a few words that will remind you of exactly what was going on

DRM: Episode questions n Please look in your diary and select episode x in the morning/afternoon/evening n What were you doing? § n Respondents marked activities from a list of 22 How did you feel during this episode Ratings of affect adjectives on a scale from 0 (not at all) to 6 (very strongly) § Positive affect (PA): happy, self-confident, satisfied § Negative affect (NA): stressed, sad, angry §

DRM affect measures At the level of the episode: n Net_affect (episode) = average of positive affect (PA) – average of negative affect (NA) At the level of the individual: n Net_affect = duration-weighted average of the values of Net Affect (episode) At the level of activity/interaction partner: n Average Net Affect experienced during a particular situation

Results: EPDS

Results: EPDS; reliable change Matthey, S. (2004). Calculating clinically significant change in postnatal depression studies using the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale. Journal of Affective Disorders, 78(3), 269 -272.

Results Net Affect (PA-NA)

Mean level of well-being

Changes in the level of well-being n Strong convergence on change § n Spearman rank correlations ranged from. 53 to. 61 Differences between prenatal and postnatal levels of well-being were not significant (Wilcoxon’s signed rank test), irrespective of which measure was used

Mean Net Affect by activity category

Change in the content of well-being n n n Upward shift in well-being during active leisure from T 1 to T 2 Episodes involving eating occur more frequently at T 2; not less or more enjoyable In the postpartum period: Emotional experiences during time spent playing and walking with the baby were very positive § Child care activities ranked slightly above compulsory activities (e. g. , housework) §

Conclusions n n n The women in this study generally seemed to cope well with the transition to motherhood Prenatal and postnatal well-being scores generally indicated positive mood states or mild mood disturbances Women may enjoy active leisure activities, such as exercise and reading, less during pregnancy as a result of their physical condition

Discussion n Large scale study needed to examine the particular form of change (linear, curvilinear) and to explain individual differences in change patterns § n Day-to-day variability in women’s level of wellbeing § n E. g. , effect of perceived antenatal support e. g. , as a result of highly variable infant sleep patterns Possible advantages of the DRM § lower susceptibility to the influences of general beliefs and social desirability

Thank you for your attention! Questions? p. j. hoffenaar@uva. nl