It was much easier to find articles that related to my topic when I did the search online. Although I found it easier to read the printed journals, I was thrilled to finally be able to explore my topic more specifically. I found an article in the Infant Mental Health Journal titled “Birth and Motherhood: Childbirth Experience and Mothers’ Perceptions of themselves and their Babies” by Samantha Reisz, Deborah Jacobvitz, and Carol George. The topic that the article covered was childbirth experience, and the question the study hoped to answer was whether or not the childbirth experience had an influence on mothers’ descriptions of their children and their confidence in raising them.

The type of data that was needed for the study was shallow opinions and attitudes, which were gathered from surveys. The researchers asked mothers what kind of delivery they had (cesarean or vaginal), and if it was a good or bad experience. Mothers were then asked to describe their children and to say how confident they feel about how they are raising their child. In order to analyze the data, the researchers used Mplus and looked for correlations in the data from the questionnaires. The study is secondary literature, as the researchers used other studies to help create their methods. The study concluded that vaginal birth leads to a more positive description of the child and that the delivery mode did not have any impact on mothering confidence but the childbirth experience did. 

I think this was a good article and it conduced good research that was presented straightforwardly. There were lots of factors to take into account when performing the study like potential bias women may have about childbirth, or different class issues that may come up. It seems as though these variables were considered when conducting the research because they are described in the study. It would be interesting to now do a study about the different factors that could change the results.

Citation:

Reisz, S., Jacobvitz, D. and George, C. (2015), “Birth and Motherhood: Childbirth Experience and Mothers’ Perceptions of Themselves and their Babies”. Infant Mental Health Journal, 36: 167–178. doi:10.1002/imhj.21500

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com.ezproxy.redlands.edu/doi/10.1002/imhj.21500/full