The ups and downs of early mothering

Abstract

Introduction: The maternal experience of having a young infant is often viewed through a negative lens focused on psychological distress due, in part, to a historical focus on identifying threats to prenatal, perinatal and postpartum well-being of women and infants. This report examines maternal appraisal of both positive and negative experiences during and after pregnancy and introduces a new scale that assesses both uplifts and hassles that are specific to early motherhood.

Methods: The sample included 136 women who began study participation during pregnancy and completed an existing scale designed to evaluate pregnancy-specific hassles and uplifts. When infants were 6 months old, participants completed the newly developed Maternal Experience Scale (MES) along with questionnaires related to anxiety, depression, attachment, parenting stress and infant temperament characteristics.

Results: In general, women with 6-month-old infants rated their maternal experiences far more positively than negatively. MES hassles and uplift scores reflected both convergent and discriminant validity with general measures of psychological well-being and parent-specific measures. Appraisal of the pregnancy experience significantly predicted appraisal of early motherhood for hassles, uplifts and a composite score reflecting emotional valence. Women became relatively more uplifted and less hassled from pregnancy to 6-month postpartum; this was particularly true for multiparous women.

Discussion: The maternal perception of motherhood corresponds to her perception of pregnancy. The MES provides a balanced view of motherhood by including maternal appraisal of the uplifting aspects of caring for an infant.

Keywords: Infancy; maternal stress; motherhood; parenting; postpartum distress; pregnancy.

Figure 1

Associations between Pregnancy Experience Scale (PES) scores collected during the second half of pregnancy with Maternal Experience Scale (MES) scores recorded at 6 months postpartum. All prenatal to postnatal associations were significant (ps < .0001).