Description
Subsequent to the birth of a child, over half of all mothers are adversely affected by feelings of depression, stress, exhaustion, and anxiety that often result in a more serious mental disorder known as postpartum mental illness. Especially in regard to distressed individuals, social support is not always beneficial and positive; it not only represents a method of ameliorating postpartum mental illness, but also a process that can complicate or exacerbate such illness. Social support, when incompetently expressed and managed, can have deleterious impacts on an already distressed mother, and has the ability to catalyze a range of dysfunctional internal perceptions. This study investigated how the perceived social support processes are associated with outcome valence, and who mothers prefer to be supported by in the time of their distress (i.e., up to one year after giving birth). An online survey was completed by 146 females via snowball sampling. Findings yielded a promising set of initial results. In general, mothers preferred support most from their husband/partner and parents/siblings/immediate family. In the case of informational support, however, mothers preferred support from medical professionals and peers. For all four categories of social support (i.e., tangible, companionship, emotional, informational), mothers strongly disliked support from in-laws. In the way of major findings, results indicated that informational support provided by medical professionals is satisfactory only when the information is framed with emotional tactics. Additionally, medical professionals were proven to be a source of additional support when mothers lacked support in general. However, when mothers did no lack support, they did not feel the need to be supported by their healthcare providers. Other major findings were present for emotional-identity support. Moreover, appropriate identity support contributed to overall satisfaction, while support that did not make mothers feel like a "good mom" was the least satisfying overall. This proposes identity support to be a powerful contributor of overall satisfaction. Last, results suggested that appropriate social support may be more influential than inappropriate support. Following results and discussion, limitations and directions for future research are reviewed.
