Women's Health Nursing (여성건강간호학회지)

Korean Society of Women Health Nursing (한국여성건강간호학회)
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Postnatal social support experiences in primiparous women in Korea: a hermeneutic phenomenological study

한국의 초산모들의 산후 사회적 지원 경험: 해석학적 현상학 연구

  • Eunjoo Lee (Department of Nursing, Kyungnam University) ;
  • Kyongsuk Hong (Department of Nursing, Kyungnam University)
  • 이은주 (경남대학교 간호학과) ;
  • 홍경숙 (경남대학교 간호학과)
  • Received : 2024.01.11
  • Accepted : 2024.06.12
  • Published : 2024.06.30
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Abstract

Purpose: Social support is essential for postpartum well-being, but little is known about the postpnatal social support preferred by primiparous women. This study aimed to comprehensively understand and describe the meaning of postnatal social support experience in primiparous women. Methods: The participants were seven primiparous women who were within 1 year after childbirth, recruited through purposive and snowball sampling from an online parenting community. The data were collected through in-depth interviews from November 14 to 28, 2022. Participants were interviewed face-to-face or via phone or online platform, according to their choice. Colaizzi's phenomenological qualitative research method was applied to analyze the meaning of the participants' experience. Results: Five theme clusters and fourteen themes were identified from the data. The five theme clusters are as follows: (1) Shortcomings of the childbirth and postpartum care system I learned through my experience; (2) Government policies focusing on childbirth and child-rearing rather than postpartum recovery; (3) Driving force of postpartum recovery: Shared childbirth process; (4) Childcare on my own; and (5) Conflicted between being a stay-at-home mom and a working mom under inadequate maternity protection policies. Conclusion: Despite postpartum support from the government that was perceived as inadequate, first-time mothers regained confidence and motivation for parenting with the help of family, peers, and social networks. First-time mothers need support from professionals and reliable online communities for postpartum recovery and parenting.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by a National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean government (MSIT: Ministry of Science and ICT) (No. NRF-2019R1G1A1100124).

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