Motherhood: The emergence of a new persona

TL;DRAbstract

This study determined the prevalence of a loss and a grief phenomenon among women transitioning into motherhood. Personal losses were defined according to a new mother's loss of her previous self-identity, self-concept, personal time, autonomy, femininity, occupational identity and social constructs. Grief was defined according to Dr. Kuber-Ross's Five Stages of Grieving (namely, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance), which was originally intended to describe grieving relating to death and the loss of a loved one. The results indicated that the respondents did experience the grief stages associated with a sense of a personal loss. This study suggests that grieving may be a normal and healthy reaction to what may be expected personal losses, and not a result of a dysfunctional personality of a person (i.e., a mental illness called Postpartum Depression), which may aid in changing the one-sided view of childbirth.

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