Maternity restrictions: the effects on perceived stress, coping skills, social support, and reported pregnancy experience
Authors
Murfitt, Abigail
Issue Date
2022
Degree
BA Hons in Psychology
Publisher
Dublin Business School
Rights holder
Rights
Items in eSource are protected by copyright. Previously published items are made available in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher/copyright holder.
Abstract
In recent years, the Covid-19 pandemic has caused major disruption across all sectors. Many maternity hospitals in Ireland have continued to implement strict measures. Such measures include requesting service users to attend appointments alone, limited partner and no family or friend visits on postnatal wards. Some qualitative research suggests women felt safer with restrictions (Cullen et al, 2021), while others spoke of not seeing their partner for multiple days after giving birth (Panda et al, 2021). 132 participants participated in a quantitative study, with 95 reporting giving birth during the pandemic. Differences in stress, coping-self efficacy and negative pregnancy experience across groups were non-significant. Perceived social support significantly predicted positive pregnancy experience scores, while those who experienced partner restrictions in SCBU had significantly higher negative pregnancy experience scores.