‘She will know that her mother’s doing something for her’: women with intellectual disabilities assuming the mother identity

Abstract

This article explores the experiences of women with intellectual disabilities in becoming a mother. The presented findings are from a grounded theory research study with 19 women with intellectual disabilities from the Czech Republic. The findings are organised around external and internal factors affecting the women’s assumption of the mother identity, with the most prominent being poverty of the participating mothers, negative attitudes towards their motherhood, and a lack of preparation for motherhood. There is a need for systemic support for mothers with intellectual disabilities, starting in adolescence with sexual education, and continued throughout adulthood, including programmes focused on skills development.

Keywords:

• Intellectual disabilities
• motherhood
• mother identity
• supports
• social networks
• grounded theory approach

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to express their sincere gratitude to the participating mothers with intellectual disabilities for taking time to participate in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was approved and supported by the Grant Agency of the Charles University in Prague (grant no. GA UK 1756214).