The role of the subjective experience of pregnancy and childbirth in the development of postnatal distress

As previously commented, a strong body of research has focused on unraveling risk factors for the development of postnatal distress, due to the negative effect this phenomenon exerts on maternal and infant well-being. The most significant findings have been yielded by the psychosocial and physiological realms, and significant and well-validated explanatory models have been proposed.

The first approach has highlighted the role of six main risk factors such as antenatal depression, antenatal anxiety, previous history of depression, social support, life events, and self-esteem; whereas the latter highlights the influence of hormonal variables, progesterone levels being the most significant.


Notwithstanding the validity of these findings, feminist scholars have argued that postnatal distress cannot be explained exclusively by objective facts and risk factors, which they claim to be strongly influenced by the cultural discourse. In line with this argument, these scholars declare that the personal or subjective experiences women have during pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum are to be considered a central piece of the postnatal distress’ puzzle.

Accordingly, qualitative researchers have suggested that perceptions and expectations of events related to the pregnancy process are important variables to be studied. From a phenomenological perspective, Hart (1981) argues that “the experience of motherhood is integrated into a system of existent meanings, thus, the experiences are not processed as detached information in a pure cognitive level, but incorporated into a woman’s values and beliefs, an into her particular way to experience the world she lives in” (p.285).

So, postnatal distress and postnatal depression can be understood as one of the various meanings that can be constructed regarding the experience of pregnancy and childbirth.