Parenting stress in mothers with asthma during the postpartum period

Abstract

Objective

Maternal asthma often complicates pregnancy and is linked with poorer quality of life. Additionally, individuals with asthma are at an increased risk of depression and anxiety. We examined whether asthma during pregnancy is related to parenting stress in the first year postpartum and if this relationship varies with level of asthma control.

Methods

This cohort survey-based study included mothers with (n = 157) and without (n = 79) asthma. Mothers with asthma participated in this study following participation in a randomized controlled trial of a novel asthma management strategy during pregnancy. Mothers completed the Parenting Stress Index – Short Form during the first 12 months postpartum. Mothers with asthma also completed the Asthma Control Questionnaire.

Results

Parenting stress did not differ between mothers with and without asthma. Additionally, for mothers with asthma, there were no differences in levels of parenting stress based on asthma control.

Conclusions

This study suggests that mothers with asthma are not at an increased risk for excessive parenting stress. However, due to response and sampling bias, levels of parenting stress in asthmatic mothers may be underreported in our sample.

Keywords:

• Asthma
• mothers
• parenting stress
• postpartum
• mental health
• wellbeing

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank the Breathing for Life Trial, the Breathing for Life Trial-Infant Development and the BabyMinds research project teams who contributed to participant recruitment and data collection. An additional thank you to Annelies Robijn who assisted in the extraction and coding of pregnancy data. We would also like to warmly thank the mothers who participated in this research study.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of this article.

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Notes

1 Some mothers did not complete the ACQ because it was introduced after the original study conception.

Additional information

Funding

CAM, AJW and OMW were supported by a Research Training Program Stipend Scholarship provided by the Australian Government. VEM was supported by a Career Development Fellowship from the National Health and Medical Research Council (1084816). The Randomized Controlled Trial (Breathing for Life Trial) was supported by a National Health and Medical Research Council project grant (1060983). This research was conducted with financial assistance from the Priority Research Center GrowUpWell® at The University of Newcastle. The funding bodies had no role in the design of the study, data collection, data analysis, interpretation of data nor in writing the manuscript.