Features of mothers’ emotional experience during the hospitalization of newborns in connection with hypoxic affection of the central nervous system

Authors

  • Irina Mamaychuk St. Petersburg State University, 7–9, Universitetskaya nab., St. Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation
  • Julia Milanich St. Petersburg State University, 7–9, Universitetskaya nab., St. Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu16.2021.106

Abstract

Mothers of newborns with central nervous system pathology tend to experience more severe psychological distress and difficulty in forming a favourable relationship to their child than mothers of healthy infants. To provide psychological assistance, there is a need to better understand the features of the experience that parents find stressful and which ones are positive, in order to cope with stress. The objective of the research was to study mothers’ emotional experience during the hospitalization of newborns with hypoxic affection of the central nervous system (CNS). The research included 40 women admitted together with their children to the newborn pathology department: 22 mothers of full-term infants with hypoxic-ischemic injury (grade II and III), 18 mothers of preterm infants (29–34 weeks) with hypoxic-ischemic injury (grade II and III), intraventricular hemorrhage (grade II and III), and combined ischemic and hemorrhagic damage. Women responded to the questions of the original clinical-psychological interview and the data was processed qualitatively and quantitatively. The article describes the factors and content of negative and positive emotions of mothers in the period of hospitalization. The data on the contradictory nature of mothers’ reports of their feelings is presented: answers to direct questions are chiefly of a positive or ambivalent emotional background, while answers to projective questions primarily reflect a negative emotional background. It is shown that with a combination of prematurity and hypoxic affection of the child’s CNS, women have a more negative emotional background than that of the respondents who had delivered a full-term child. Conclusions are made about the effect of attitude on a “socially desirable” response during the description of the emotional experience, about less favorable emotional experience of mothers who delivered children prematurely with the pathology of the CNS.

Keywords:

mothers, newborns, hypoxic affection of the central nervous system, emotional experience, stressors, clinical-and-psychological interview

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.
 

Author Biography

Irina Mamaychuk, St. Petersburg State University, 7–9, Universitetskaya nab., St. Petersburg, 199034, Russian Federation

д-р психол. наук

References


References

Obeidat H.M., Bond E.A., Callister L.C. The parental experience of having an infant in the newborn intensive care unit. The Journal of Perinatal Education, 2009, vol. 18 (3), pp. 23–29. https://doi. org/10.1624/105812409X461199

Grosik C., Snyder D., Cleary G.M., Breckenridge D.M., Tidwel B. Identification of Internal and External Stressors in Parents of Newborns in Intensive Care. Permanente Journal, 2013, vol. 17 (3), pp. 36– 41. https://doi.org/10.7812/TPP/12-105

Heringhaus A., Blom M.D., Wigert H. Becoming a parent to a child with birth asphyxia — From a traumatic delivery to living with the experience at home. International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being, 2013, no. 8 (20539), pp. 1–13. https://doi.org/10.3402/qhw.v8i0.20539

Nassef S.K., Blennow M., Jirwe M. Experiences of Parents Whose Newborns Undergo Hypothermia Treatment Following Perinatal Asphyxia. Journal of Obstetric, Gynecologic & Neonatal Nursing, 2013, vol. 42 (1), pp. 38–47. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1552-6909.2012.01429.x

Williams K.G., Patel K., Stausmire J.M., Bridges C., Mathis M., Barkin J.L. The neonatal intensive care unit: Environmental Stressor and Supports. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 2018, vol. 15 (1), p. 60. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph15010060

Caporali C., Pisoni C., Gasparini L., Ballante E., Zecca M., Orcesi S., Provenzi L.A global perspective on parental stress in the neonatal intensive care unit: a meta-analytic study. Journal of Perinatology, 2020, vol. 40, pp. 1739–1752. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41372-020-00798-6

Lefkowitz D. S., Baxt C., Evans J.R. Prevalence and correlates of posttraumatic stress and postpartum depression in parents of infants in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). Journal of Clinical Psychology in Medical Settings, 2010, vol. 17 (3), pp. 230–237. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10880-010-9202-7. PMID: 20632076

Vanderbilt D., Bushley T., Young R., Frank D. Acute Posttraumatic Stress Symptoms Among Urban Mothers With Newborns in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: A Preliminary Study. Journal of Developmental & Behavioral Pediatrics, 2009, vol. 30 (1), pp. 50–56. https://doi.org/10.1097/DBP. 0b013e318196b0de

Trost M.J., Molas-Torreblanca K., Man C., Cassilas E., Sapir H., Schrager S.M. Screening for maternal postpartum depression during infant hospitalizations. Journal of Hospital Medicine, 2016, vol. 11 (12), pp. 840–846. https://doi.org/10.1002/jhm.2646

Laudi A., Peeples E. The relationship between neonatal encephalopathy and maternal postpartum depression. The Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine, 2019, vol. 3, pp. 1–5. https://doi.org/10.108 0/14767058.2019.1571574

Shaw R.J., Bernard R. S., Deblois T., Ikuta L.M., Ginzburg K., Koopman C. The relationship between acute stress disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder in the neonatal intensive care unit. Psychosomatics, 2009, vol. 50 (2), pp. 131–137. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.psy.50.2.131

Wigert H., Johansson R., Berg M., Hellström A.L. Mothers’ experiences of having their newborn child in a neonatal intensive care unit. Scandinavian Journal of Caring Sciences, 2006, vol. 20 (1), pp. 35–41. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-6712.2006.00377.x

Festant F., Antonelli C., Chorna O., Corsi G., Guzzetta A. Parent-Infant Interaction during the First Year of Life in Infants at High Risk for Cerebral Palsy: A Systematic Review of the Literature. Neural Plasticity, 2019, vol. 3, pp. 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1155/2019/5759694

Goutaudier N., Lopez A., Sejourne N., Denis A., Chabrol H. Premature birth: subjective and psychological experiences in the first weeks following childbirth, a mixed-methods study. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, 2011, vol. 29 (4), pp. 364–373. https://doi.org/10.1080/02646838.201 1.623227

Stacey S., Osborn M., Salkovskis P. Life is a rollercoaster… What helps parents cope with the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Journal of Neonatal Nursing, 2015, vol. 21 (4), pp. 136–141. https://doi. org/10.1016/j.jnn.2015.04.006

Downloads

Published

2021-04-16

How to Cite

Mamaychuk, I., & Milanich, J. (2021). Features of mothers’ emotional experience during the hospitalization of newborns in connection with hypoxic affection of the central nervous system. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Psychology, 11(1), 89–102. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu16.2021.106

Issue

Vol. 11 No. 1 (2021)

Section

Empirical and Experimental Research

License

Articles of "Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Psychology" are open access distributed under the terms of the License Agreement with Saint Petersburg State University, which permits to the authors unrestricted distribution and self-archiving free of charge.