title: "I just feel like I am broken. I am the worst pregnant woman ever": A qualitative exploration of the "at odds" experience of women's antenatal distress.
abstract: Advances in perinatal mental health research have provided valuable insights around risk factors for the overall development of maternal distress. However, there is still a limited understanding of the experience of women struggling emotionally during pregnancy. We explored how women view, experience, and interpret psychological distress antenatally. Eighteen Australian women participated in in-depth interviews that were analyzed thematically within a critical realist theoretical framework. We present and situate the current findings within the dominant discourse of the good mother, which arguably promotes guilt and stigma and results in women self-labeling as bad mothers.
authors.affiliation: a School of Psychology , The University of Queensland , Brisbane , Queensland , Australia.
authors.forename: Aleksandra A
authors.initials: AA
authors.lastname: Staneva
authors.affiliation: b School of Nursing , Midwifery and Social Work, The University of Queensland , Brisbane , Queensland , Australia.
authors.forename: Fiona
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Bogossian
authors.affiliation: a School of Psychology , The University of Queensland , Brisbane , Queensland , Australia.
authors.forename: Alina
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Morawska
authors.affiliation: c Division of Clinical Psychology, Department of Psychology , University of Manchester , Manchester , UK.
authors.forename: Anja
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Wittkowski
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001315:Australia; D010054:Brief Psychiatric Rating Scale; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D011247:Pregnancy; D037841:Pregnant People / Q000523:psychology*; D011295:Prenatal Care / Q000523:psychology*; D036301:Qualitative Research; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000523:psychology*