Laboring to Mother in the Context of Past Trauma

Abstract

The occurrence of interpersonal trauma is a reality for many women, with effects that often persist long after the traumatic events end. The purpose of this feminist grounded theory study was to examine how past trauma shaped the lives of women as they became new mothers. We recruited a purposive sample of 32 women from two Canadian communities and conducted semistructured, dialogic interviews during the second trimester of pregnancy. We analyzed data using thematic content analytic methods, including open coding whereby we read transcripts line by line and applied codes to portions of text that illustrated concepts or themes. The substantive grounded theory, “laboring to mother in the context of past trauma,” describes the exceedingly difficult emotional and cognitive work undertaken by pregnant women with histories of trauma as they anticipate becoming mothers. In this article, we present key components of the theory and offer recommendations for health and social service providers.

Healing The Past By Nurturing The Future: A qualitative systematic review and meta-synthesis of pregnancy, birth and early postpartum experiences and views of parents with a history of childhood maltreatment

“…The 27 studies included in this review were conducted in the United States of America (USA) (n = 16) [47, 52, 54, 55, 59, 60, 63–69, 71–73], United Kingdom (UK) (n = 4) [46, 50, 51, 57], Canada (n = 4) [45, 53, 61, 74], Australia (n = 2) [48, 62] and Brazil (n = 1) [56].…”

“…Participants were recruited from a range of settings, and in 17 studies these were classified as ‘risk’ settings, including mental health settings (n = 4) [46, 54, 60, 65], trauma, sexual assault or incest support groups (n = 6) [47, 51, 61, 62, 72, 74], adolescent out of home care support or residential care programs (n = 3) [55, 56, 67], support programs for ‘at risk’ parents (n = 2) [50, 73], local community agencies such as perinatal care Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, Craigslist and hospitals [71] and a homeless shelter program [52]. Other settings were classified generally as community-based urban [45, 53], urban and rural [48, 69], and perinatal, maternity or obstetric care [57, 59, 63, 64, 66, 68].…”

“…Nineteen studies reported the race/ethnicity of parents, and in five of these, more than 50% of the participants identified as a member of an ethnic minority group [52, 55, 64, 66, 72]. Seven studies included a small proportion of Indigenous parents [45, 52, 53, 59, 61, 67, 71]. There were approximately 20 Indigenous parents in total, but we were unable to specify the exact number as Indigenous parents were combined with Asian parents in one study [59].…”

“…Of the 21 studies reporting parents’ relationship status, eight identified the majority of parents as ‘single’ (>50%) [45, 50, 52, 56, 60, 61, 66, 73], and six identified a high proportion of single parents (>20% of the sample). Education and socio-economic status were reported in less than 15 studies and so are not reported here.…”

“…For many participants, pregnancy and the transition to parenthood was a turning point in their life trajectory, offering a new opportunity or fresh start for positive change or ‘second chance’ and a “ normal ” life that was distinct from their past trauma [45, 53–55, 59, 61, 65, 67, 68, 73]. This links to the healing journey though pregnancy , birth and parenting (subtheme 7.4).…”