Qualitative Research Report

Introduction

Becoming a mother is a significant occurrence in a women s life& a transition which can completely change the meaning of life (Prinds et al., 2014). A transition like this can be an overwhelming experience, influencing relationships and personality traits (Wagner & Neyer, 2013). Dealing with the challenges that come with pregnancy and raising a baby can cause first-time mothers to rethink the way they view themselves as well as their partners due to their new roles (Van Scheppingen et al., 2018). These short-term and long-term effects of a mother s low self-esteem and relationship problems can have a detrimental impact on the life of the mother, father as well as the children (Van Scheppingen et al., 2018). The findings from these studies emphasise the importance of further researching issues experienced when first starting motherhood in order to try and understand and help current and future mothers and their families.

Healthcare providers have carried out research to try and address factors that correlate with maternal transition however there is still a lot of progress to be made in transferring this data into practice (Nelson, 2003). Support for mothers often focuses on the physical health of the mother and baby, neglecting the emotional impact it has and the reality of becoming a first-time mother (Nelson, 2003). Motherhood comes with expectations and pressures to be the ideal mum without questioning where these expectations are coming from or if they are realistic. A study by Choi et al. (2007) showed that the majority of mothers were unprepared, as their expectations and preparation into motherhood were based on myths. This gap between the ideology of motherhood and the reality lead to feelings of being incapable. Due to these unrealistic expectations portrayed, mothers did not feel as if they could be openly seen to be inadequate and therefore felt the need to hide their struggles and come across as the ideal supermum to other mothers, reinforcing these expectations (Choi et al., 2007).

A study by Smith (2007) follows the transition of motherhood of a small group of women. The primary concern is whether the transition of motherhood has a significant effect on their self-identity. Smith s research suggests that a sense of self can only exist in relation to other people also known as other selves. This is supported in the study by Seymour-Smith et al. (2016), where the social identity model of identity change was shown to be closely linked to postpartum depression, with evident benefits from having a social network. Another example of this is when women feel they have lost their sense of self due to leaving work and the work community after becoming a mother. To gain back their self- identity mothers join new communities with common aims and support each other s reasons for leaving work (Weick, 2005).

Mumsnet& a website for parents in the UK with discussion forums used to share advice and information about many different parenting topics is one way new mothers come together. With themes established from previous literature discussed above, the current study aims to update and develop the area of issues faced by first-time mothers through a content analysis approach to an online Mumsnet discussion forum addressing the research question: What do women struggle with when they have their first baby?

Method

Design

Content analysis is a method used in psychology for analysing documents with large amounts of written text in order to test theories and gain a better understanding of the data (Elo & Kyngas, 2008). A qualitative content analysis was used for this reason& to analyse and understand data from a Mumsnet forum with the question What did you struggle with most when you had your first baby? A deductive approach was used as the analysis was based on previous knowledge about transition to motherhood with the study going from general to specific as stated by Burns and Grove (as cited in Elo &Kyngas, 2008).

Materials

The data set were comments of first-time mothers, collected from an online Mumsnet forum (see appendix D). There was a total of 126 comments contributed during March to April 2012. The dataset was put into a Microsoft word document for analysis of the data, highlighting the themes and to make the category matrix.

Data Analysis

The data was analysed using the three phases of content analysis& preparation, organisation and reporting (Elo & Kyngas, 2008). In the first phase, the Mumsnet forum was selected as data set to analyse. It was formatted into a word document and distributed to all students in the classroom. The dataset was read thoroughly to gain an understanding of the data overall.

In the organisation phase, background research was carried out on issues facing first-time mothers as they adapt to the reality of life in their new role. Several key journal articles were used to address the research question& What do women struggle with when they have their first baby? This was done in order to establish the themes and subthemes from common topics occurring in the literature. The themes were formed based on research of four journal articles with a range of qualitative approaches including: discourse analysis (Bailey,1999), IPA (Smith, 1999) and grounded theory (Nelson, 2003) and (Choi et al., 2003). All students read through the dataset to gain an understanding and establish reoccurring themes. After two meetings, the group agreed on which categories and sub-categories to use and a universal category matrix was created (see appendix A & B). The core themes established were: changing sense of self, relationships, individual and societal expectations, emotional impact, choices (or lack of), experience of changing body, feeling towards motherhood, experience of time and contradictions and effects of change (see appendix C for subcategories). The data was then coded through highlighting comments from the Mumsnet forum and adding them to the category matrix as evidence for the suitable categories. Number s were given to each sub-category and matched to quotes from the forum to help the coding process. Themes discussed in the data which were not part of the category matrix were dismissed as part of the deductive approach.

Finally, relationships between the themes were considered and the analysing process and results were reported.

Ethical considerations

The Mumsnet forum was in a public domain and ethical approval was given by the Chester University Psychology Ethical Committee in order to use the data. The content analysis was operated under the BPS (British Psychology Society) code of conduct. Where real names were given on the forum, pseudonyms were used to protect anonymity. For the welfare of students as researchers, information and sources of support were available online and from Student Support and Guidance incase the content of the forum was of a sensitive nature to some students.

Results and Discussion

The themes chosen to focus on within the issues facing first-time mothers were emotional impact and choice (or lack of). The sub-categories that were chosen from these core themes were loneliness & guilt, and commitment to new life & loss of previous identity. These categories were chosen as they occurred most frequently in the Mumsnet discussion forum as well as being salient discussion topics.

Emotional impact is something that came up frequently within the forum. Mother s discussed different emotions being greatly impacted due to reasons including& societal and personal expectations, lack of support and demands of the baby. Loneliness was one of those emotions. Loneliness was felt due to being home alone with a baby who can t communicate and to most mothers their baby was believed to be of little entertainment at such an early stage. As stated by Haga et al., (2012), loneliness was something mothers hadn t expected and felt most unprepared for. One mum with the username Plaguegroup responded to the research question with Loneliness after DP went back to work, suddenly I had long days to fill and only a tiny non-talking person for company (Mumsnet, 2012). This shows that regardless of having her baby at home with her she felt almost as if she was alone, making her lonely. Another form of loneliness that was mentioned by several mothers was that caused by a lack of understanding or support from their partner and thus feeling alone in the transition to parenthood and the demands of raising a baby even though their partner was physically there. This was expressed by TooImmatureTurtleDoves That and the loneliness in the middle of the night. I don`t know about the rest of you, but DH was useless at getting up and acted like I was personally torturing him, and he couldn`t be expected to function on so little sleep (Mumsnet, 2012). These feelings of loneliness can have a great effect on a mother s emotional state. Klein s (1998) study suggested that mothers who reported feeling lonely during pregnancy and motherhood, were more likely to suffer from low self-esteem, depression and anxiety. Guilt is another emotion that was brought up countless times throughout the forum. Feeling guilty for feeling the way they were, because they thought they should be feeling differently. Guilt comes with struggling with day to day coping of being a first-time mother and is often coupled with feelings of failure and frustration (Mackinlay & Baker, 2005). This links in with societal and own expectations of motherhood. As said by MyDogShitsShoes The guilt is always the same though, the "I shouldn`t be feeling like this, I should be feeling so grateful that I have been blessed with a child that I am loving every second (Mumsnet, 2012), feeling guilty for struggling. Similarly, a lot of guilt seemed to be created about having thoughts of regrets due to the stress and emotional impact the challenge of having your first baby has, I felt like I was losing my mind, resented my son and felt we`d made a terrible mistake. Which then makes you feel guilty for having those thoughts in the first place. All fine now, but I genuinely think you can t be held responsible for anything you think during said by kdiddy (Mumsnet, 2012).

Choices or the lack of was a key area of discussion in the forum& from the initial choice of becoming a mother to financial adjustments and choices about going back to work. The subcategories chosen to focus on in this content analysis are commitment to new life and loss of previous identity.

Commitment to new life was a major topic, the realisation that their new life with their baby will take up all their time and that was a big adjustment& The fact that DH would walk back in the door after 10 hours away at work and would ask what I had done that day and the answer was literally, care for baby and nothing else. Not even time to post a letter or buy a carrot as said by heliumballoon (Mumsnet, 2012). Loss of previous identity ties in with this as due to committing everything to their new life, they are slowly losing their previous identity and old self. This is shown clearly in a comment by bringmesunshine2009, That and the feeling that I had totally lost my identity. No longer was I foxy but regarded myself as mummsy with no style or body (Mumsnet, 2012). Not only losing part of your personality or other features such as style and body that were part of your old identity but also losing your own identity in general. Not being identified as your own person by yourself or others but rather as a mum or a woman with a baby, I felt quite invisible, as if I had been eclipsed by the baby. I remember walking past an acquaintance who just didn`t see me. I realised I had just become a woman pushing a pram! as said by MA (Mumsnet, 2012). Mother s loss and shift in self-identity is often reinforced by leaving the workplace after having their baby. Many women try to go back to work or continue working in some form to take back their lost identity and associate their self with something other than solely being a mother (Kanji & Cahusac, 2015).

Limitations

Most mothers in the forum were struggling in some way, however we cannot draw a conclusion that all mothers in the UK struggle when having their first baby although it does appear so from Mumsnet data set. The limitation of the forum is that it is a website made for mothers seeking support, advice or general information about parenting and therefore most mothers writing on that forum are going to be struggling and are therefore looking for support. There might be a group of mothers who are not struggling, feel supported by friends and family and therefore do not need to seek support through an online forum and won t be part of this data set.

After coding the data, it was evident that some sub-categories should have been coded differently. An example was breastfeeding, a theme that was not part of the category matrix however was a reoccurring theme in the forum. As this content analysis was following the deductive approach, it could not be added in afterwards as that would be an inductive approach so instead breastfeeding related comments were added to the bodily changes category. Boredom was another theme that came up frequently in the forum but was not part of the category matrix. The reason for this was that the topic of boredom did not come up in previous literature. This could possibly be due to mothers finding it difficult to admit or being ashamed of being bored when having their new-born. As Mumsnet is an online forum with anonymous usernames and for mothers with similar issues perhaps they felt more comfortable admitting it there in comparison to in an interview for example. Another category that could have had different subcategories was relationships. When talking about relationships with other mothers, the literature was solely focused on mothers getting support from each other and only staying friends with those who already had children as they were then on the same page. This was reflected in the categories and sub-categories of the category matrix such as shared community/experiences with mothers, difficulties maintaining childless friends and increased friends with children. In contrast to this, the forum showed a different angle of relationships between mothers with rather than being able to relate to them, having nothing in common, getting unwanted advice and a feeling of competition.

Lastly some confusion was created, and it was difficult to understand parts of the forum without a key given for the abbreviations used such as DD (darling daughter) and FIL (father in law). This took away from fully understanding the data set.

Reflection

Mothers were unaware that their data was going to be analysed. Mumsnet is also an anonymous online forum discussion amongst mothers experiencing similar things, thus it is likely that they felt comfortable and safe sharing their experiences, making the information genuine.

The data would have been viewed and interpreted differently if I was a mother. I have no friends or close family who are young mothers and therefore I believe I carried out a non-biased analysis as it wasn t influenced by my own experiences as a mother. However, on the other hand, I couldn t relate as much to the mother s comments and thus it could be argued that my level of understanding was on a different level to those students who are mothers. This may have affected the coding process and which categories were chosen to focus on as this can be subjective to each student.

The coding process may also have been affected by the lack of experience as this is not only the first time, I am carrying out a content analysis but also my first time doing qualitative research.

Conclusion

It is evident from the research that most mothers struggle when having their first baby. From the Mumsnet discussion forum, frequently occurring issues were loneliness, guilt, commitment to new life and loss of previous identity. Although based on the Mumsnet data alone, this conclusion cannot be generalized to a wider population as this focuses on a data set of mothers who were likely to have been struggling seeing as they searched for support. &To draw these conclusion, further research would have to be completed, for example through interviewing mothers from a random sample.

References

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Kanji, S., & Cahusac, E. (2015). Who am I? Mothers shifting identities, loss and sensemaking after workplace exit. Human Relations, 68(9), 1415 1436.

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