Abstract
BackgroundPregnancy is one of the most important periods of any woman’s life, wherein the support of her relatives, especially her spouse, enables her to tolerate the difficulties with good memories. However, in Iran, there are very few studies on the participation of spouses in the perinatal period. Therefore, the present study aimed to explain the concept of spouse participation in perinatal care.MethodsThis is a qualitative study that was carried out in 2018 on spouse participation in perinatal care in Qom, Iran. Purposive sampling from pregnant or postpartum women, spouses, midwifery care providers, and key informants was performed according to study inclusion criteria. Semi-structured in-depth interviews were carried out until the data saturation was met. Also, the data analysis was performed based on a conventional content analysis approach according to Graneheim & Lundman steps using MAXQDA software (v.10). Five Guba and Lincoln criteria were applied to ensure the trustworthiness of data.ResultsFifty-three final codes were classified into 18 sub-categories, 7 categories, and 3 themes including empathy (emotional and cognitive understanding), accountability (supporting, position management, compassion), and consequences (help improvement of family function, improvement of maternal-neonatal health).ConclusionsBased on the findings of this study, the concept of men’s participation in this period has been defined as a set of empathic and responsive behaviors that can lead to improvement of the family function and mother and baby health.
Highlights
Pregnancy is one of the most important periods of any woman’s life, wherein the support of her relatives, especially her spouse, enables her to tolerate the difficulties with good memories
In some societies, the men’s awareness of their role in supporting their pregnant wives has been ignored and it results in direct outcomes and indirect negative impacts (such as educational, behavioral and developmental problems of children in terms of Mehran et al BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth (2020) 20:489 the reduction of father-child relationships, decrease in social support, and increased level of maternal stress hormones [14])
The key informants were from public centers and the pregnant women and newly mothers and spouses were accessed through perinatal clinic or postpartum ward of Izadi hospital
Summary
Pregnancy is one of the most important periods of any woman’s life, wherein the support of her relatives, especially her spouse, enables her to tolerate the difficulties with good memories. In Iran, there are very few studies on the participation of spouses in the perinatal period. In some societies, the men’s awareness of their role in supporting their pregnant wives has been ignored and it results in direct outcomes (such as improper compatibility with the perinatal period and decreasing the father’s supportive role after birth [10,11,12,13]) and indirect negative impacts (such as educational, behavioral and developmental problems of children in terms of Mehran et al BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth (2020) 20:489 the reduction of father-child relationships, decrease in social support, and increased level of maternal stress hormones [14]).
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