Childbirth experience and postpartum emotional disturbance

Abstract

One hundred and sixty-one randomly selected Norwegian women (participants in a longitudinal family project) were studied during their stay at the birth clinic. They were interviewed the first day after delivery about the childbirth process: pain, anxiety, loss of control, confusion, joy, happiness, exaltation, cooperation with companion and with staff. Then they were interviewed the fifth day after delivery. The interviewer (clinical psychologist) made a global rating of each mother's emotional functioning the fifth day postpartum. Specific factors in mothers' childbirth experiences relate individually to postpartum emotional disturbance the fifth day after delivery, such as difficult childbirth, pain, loss of control, loss of awareness of time and space, anxiety, negative emotional reaction to the birth, dissatisfaction with own coping with the delivery process, and unmet needs in relation to midwife during delivery.