‘Mammy’s supposed to be strong and supportive – not sitting in a corner rocking and crying’: an interpretative phenomenological analysis of British mothers’ experiences of postnatal depression

ABSTRACT

Objective

To gain an in-depth understanding of the lived experience of women with postnatal depression (PND).

Background

Although there is a small body of existing research which explores subjective experience of this phenomenon, relatively little research has been carried out and is prior to the publication of the NICE guidelines for PND in 2007.

Method

Semi-structured interviews were carried out with six mothers (aged 23–40 years), who had taken part in a PND support group. Verbatim transcripts were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA).

Results

One broad superordinate theme of ‘the conflicted mother’ emerged from the data, with four corresponding sub-themes (own mother as absent and judgemental; internalised mother; pregnancy on the road to motherhood as an unpleasant stranger; the ideal mother).

Conclusion

It is argued that a broad umbrella construct of ‘the conflicted mother’ exists in PND experience. This study highlights the importance of the mother’s own maternal relationship in living with depression. The authors discuss limitations of the study, make service recommendations to improve current clinical practice for women with PND, and provide future research directions.

KEYWORDS:

• Depression
• postnatal
• interpretative
• phenomenological
• qualitative

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. A note on the terminology used: It is pertinent to mention that the literature and research identify several different terms to describe depression in mothers after childbirth: postpartum depression; peripartum depression; perinatal depression; and postnatal depression. However, for the purposes of achieving consistency throughout this paper, the term ‘postnatal depression’ (PND) has been used.

2. It is important to note that some minor changes have been made to the verbatim extracts from the interviews, due to limited space and to improve readability. Words such as ‘erm’, pauses and silences have been removed. All personal identifiers have been removed, and the pseudonyms used in Table 1 are maintained in the findings section to protect the confidentiality of each participant.