Women's perceptions of stressful life events in relation to pre-term birth

Abstract

This is the second of two articles exploring the views and emotions of women in a subsequent pregnancy with a history of pre-term birth or pregnancy loss. The first article outlined the preliminary literature review that informed this study. In the literature review it was found that: women who had experienced pre-term birth or pregnancy loss were anxious throughout a subsequent pregnancy; that pregnancy milestones were important to get past; that grief resurfaces during a subsequent pregnancy; and that the psychological effects of a past experience could alter women's locus of control and ability to deal with the next pregnancy. In light of these findings, a qualitative study was undertaken—the Stress, Immunity and Pre-term birth (SIP) study. Data collected from the List of Threatening Experiences Questionnaire (LTE-Q) from a larger quantitative prospective observational study (n = 200) was used to explore stressful life events. ‘Think-aloud’ methods were explored because of the structured format of data collection and 26% of women's responses (n=52) were analysed thematically using ‘framework analysis’. Themes are described in relation to ‘damage’—that is, damage to self, damage to the child and damage to relationships as a result of experiences of pre-term birth or pregnancy loss.