Relationship between maternal stress and social support among mothers with low birth weight babies

Abstract

Background: Healthy postpartum care helps with establishing a good foundation for a newborn’s health, survival, and growth and development. Mothers of low birth weight (LBW) babies may experience feelings of injury, anxiety, and shock due to their LBW babies, and many LBW babies are exposed to the stress of parenting. These mothers often benefit from help, support, faith, love, and social support. Research in other countries has shown it can. There is a lack of researches in Mongolia on the relationship between maternal stress and social support related to raising a LBW baby. Aim: To determine relationships between maternal stress levels and the social support of postpartum mothers with a LBW baby. Materials and Methods: The study design is a quantitative descriptive approach using correlational research methods. The participants in the study were total of 126 mothers who were hospitalized in one of three hospitals in Ulaanbaatar (Rehabilitation Development Center of Children with Disability, the National Center for Child and Maternal Health and the Children’s Central Hospital). The instruments for data collection were Parenting Stress Index-Short Form and the Korean Social Support questionnaire to measure maternal stress and social support. Analyses were performed using descriptive statistics including Pearson correlation coefÏcients with the SPSS 26.0 program. Results: The mean score of maternal stress with a LBW baby was 83.48 (±22.59). This score fall into the stress category (71-85) rather than possible stress (70 below score) or high stress (86 over) category. This findings suggests that mothers of LBW babies of Mongolia are in parenting stress. The mean score of social support was 130.31 (±16.81) out of 160 which suggests that social support among mothers is relatively high. Significant negative correlation between maternal stress and social support were found (r=-.427**, p=0.000). This finding means that mothers with low social support perceved high level of stress. Maternal stress associated with raising a LBW baby was positively correlated with week of birth (r=.255**, p=0.004; child’s current age (r=.265**, p value=0.005), and current child’s weight (r=.246**, p=0.005). Conclusions: The research revealed that social support including family is important for mothers who are raising a LBW child. When prenatal nursing care is well developed, it can help to decrease the risk of having LBW children. There is also a need to develop nursing interventions for mothers with LBS that include emotional, physical, and informational support. This may help to improve postpartum recovery and to decrease matters in parenting stress with low birth weight children.