Mothers’ and fathers’ lived experiences of postpartum depression and parental stress after childbirth: a qualitative study
Open accessAbstract
Purpose: The study aims are to explore the lived experiences of mothers and fathers of postpartum depression and parental stress after childbirth.Methods: Qualitative interviews conducted, and analysed from an interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) perspective.Results: Both mothers and fathers described experiences of inadequacy, although fathers described external requirements, and mothers described internal requirements as the most stressful. Experiences of problems during pregnancy or a traumatic delivery contributed to postpartum depression and anxiety in mothers and affected fathers’ well-being. Thus, identifying postpartum depression with the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, mothers described varying experiences of child health care support. Postpartum depression seemed to affect the spouses’ relationships, and both mothers and fathers experienced loneliness and spouse relationship problems. Experiences of emotional problems and troubled upbringing in the parents’ family of origin may contribute to vulnerability from previous trauma and to long-term depressive symptoms for mothers.Conclusions: The findings of this study demonstrate the significant impact of postpartum depression and parental stress has in parents’ everyday lives and on the spouse relationship. These results support a change from an individual parental focus to couples’ transition to parenthood in child health care.
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The semi-structured interview form was designed by the research team in accordance with extant literature and refined according to recommendations of two faculty members with expertise in qualitative research.
“The form is an interview instrument designed by the research team in accordance with the extant literature [27–29] and comprises open-ended questions to elicit the experiences of mothers who have given birth in an obstetrics and gynecology hospital and are in the postpartum period with regard to postpartum depression. Once the questions had been formulated, they were refined in accordance with the”
From Understanding mothers’ lived experiences of postpartum depression: a qualitative phenomenological study (2025) · cites this paper as [28]
Methods > Settings and participants (page not provided) says the researchers prepared an interview schedule with open-ended questions. It does not say the schedule was designed from existing literature or refined on the advice of two qualitative-research faculty members. (LLM, conf=0.83)
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Godbout, N., Paradis, A., Rassart, C.-A., Sadikaj, G., Herba, C. M., & Drapeau-Lamothe, M. (2023) · Journal of Affective Disorders · doi:10.1016/j.jad.2023.01.007 · Cited by 17 · see citing works
Cirban Ekrem, E., Kurt, A., & Kilci Erciyas, Ş. (2025) · BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth · doi:10.1186/s12884-025-08538-4 · Cited by 1 · see citing works
- Authors
- Johansson, M., Benderix, Y., & Svensson, I.
- Affiliations
- Linnaeus University (SE)
- Corresponding author
- Johansson, Maude
- Venue
- International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-being
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2020-01-01
- Volume
- 15
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 1722564
- ISSN
- 1748-2623 (ISSN-L)
- 1748-2631
- PMC
- PMC7034451
- OpenAlex
- W3003703703
- Cited by
- 164
- References
- 11
- Citations by year
- 2026: 17 · 2025: 35 · 2024: 40 · 2023: 33 · 2022: 21 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 6
- FWCI
- 13.08
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Locations
- International Journal of Qualitative Studies on Health and Well-Being (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- DiVA (Linkoping University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Obstetrics and Gynecology › Maternal and Perinatal Health Interventions
- Health Sciences › Health Professions › General Health Professions › Maternal and Neonatal Healthcare
- Keywords
- postpartum depression, parental stress, lived experience, fathers, mothers, transition to parenthood, couple relationships, loneliness, pregnancy complications, traumatic delivery, family of origin, Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale
- MeSH terms
- Adult, Anxiety, Depression, Female, Humans, Interpersonal Relations, Male, Parents, Pregnancy, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Stress, Psychological, Depression, Postpartum, Qualitative Research
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