The maternity blues: Exploration of a psychological hypothesis

The phenomenology of the blues was not found to be associated with the hypothesized sense of disappointment or anti‐climax despite many womens’ experiences falling short of expectation, and the most powerful predictor of the Blues was a sense of “pessimism” in late pregnancy which was actually fulfilled by postpartum reality.

Abstract

Previous studies of the maternity blues have failed to identify a consistent factor discriminating between the group of women who experienced the phenomenon and those who did not. The present study hypothesized that the maternity blues are a hormonally-assisted grief reaction which will occur predominantly in women whose antenatal expectation of baby or delivery fails to be fulfilled by the reality events. The hypothesis was tested in a prospective study of 89 women. The phenomenology of the blues was not found to be associated with the hypothesized sense of disappointment or anti-climax despite many womens' experiences falling short of expectation. Rather, the most powerful predictor of the blues was a sense of "pessimism" in late pregnancy which was actually fulfilled by postpartum reality. In addition, the triad comprising of severity of pre-menstrual tension, unplanned pregnancy and consideration given to elective termination in early pregnancy was associated with increased incidence of the blues.