According to Science Daily, mothers who give birth to premature babies often experience depression and anxiety. In order to help address this issue, researcher Lisa Segre of the University of Iowa College of Nursing and her team conducted five 45-minute sessions with 23 mothers who had delivered preterm babies.
The meetings were held one-on-one and the mothers chose where the sessions would be held as well as what to initially talk about. The most discussed topic during the first few sessions was about giving birth.
"The mothers wanted to tell their birth stories," says co-author Rebecca Siewert. " lot of times they suffer in silence because they don't want to sound as if they're weak and not doing well, and because all the focus is on the baby, they become secondary. But the mother needs to be healthy to be able to take that baby home and for that baby to do well."
After the sessions, the participants’ depression levels dropped from a mean of 14.26 to 9, based on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression scale. Anxiety levels also went down from 16.57 to 9.13, as measured by the Beck Anxiety Inventory. The numbers kept going down as time went on, while levels of enjoyment and quality of life increased.
(Photo by César Rincón via Flickr Creative Commons)
