Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-9pm4c Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-28T01:31:19.624Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Pregnancy and childbirth

from Medical topics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 December 2014

By
Lyn Quine  and
Liz Steadman
Edited by
Susan Ayers ,
Andrew Baum ,
Chris McManus ,
Stanton Newman ,
Kenneth Wallston ,
John Weinman  and
Robert West
Lyn Quine
Affiliation:
University of Kent
Liz Steadman
Affiliation:
Canterbury Christ Church University
Susan Ayers
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
Andrew Baum
Affiliation:
University of Pittsburgh
Chris McManus
Affiliation:
St Mary's Hospital Medical School
Stanton Newman
Affiliation:
University College and Middlesex School of Medicine
Kenneth Wallston
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University School of Nursing
John Weinman
Affiliation:
United Medical and Dental Schools of Guy's and St Thomas's
Robert West
Affiliation:
St George's Hospital Medical School, University of London
Get access

Summary

Over six hundred thousand children will be born in England and Wales in 2005. While the huge majority of these will be healthy, some 6000 will die before their first birthday and some 45 000 will be of low birthweight, placing them at risk. Still others will be disabled as a result of complications during the pregnancy or birth. For some mothers the quality of the birth experience will be poor and their satisfaction with antenatal services low. In this review we examine the principal social and psychological variables that may affect these outcomes and consider the contribution that psychological theory has made to our understanding of the epidemiological factors of pregnancy and childbirth.

In the following brief overview, we argue that risk factors are not distributed randomly in society and independent of living and working conditions, but are disproportionately prevalent among lower socioeconomic groups. We suggest some of the pathways by which risk factors may mediate social inputs and outcomes.

Early childhood mortality

Infant mortality in England and Wales has fallen from 9.4 per 1000 live births in 1984 to 5.6 per 1000 in 2000. Improvements in absolute social conditions played a major role in reducing mortality in the last century, along with increased medical knowledge and improved services, but marked effects of relative social and economic disadvantage are still present.

Type
Chapter
Information
Cambridge Handbook of Psychology, Health and Medicine , pp. 823 - 827
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2007

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Ajzen, I. (1991). The theory of planned behaviour. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 50, 179–211.Google Scholar
Barker, D. J. (2004). Developmental origins of adult health and disease. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 58(2), 114–15.Google Scholar
Bennett, P. & Clatworthy, J. (1999). Smoking cessation during pregnancy: Testing a psycho-biological model. Psychology, Health and Medicine, 4(3), 319–26.Google Scholar
Buka, S., Shenassa, E. & Niaura, R. (2003). Elevated risk of tobacco dependence among offspring of mothers who smoked during pregnancy: a 30-year prospective study. American Journal of Psychiatry, 160(11), 1978–84.Google Scholar
Cornelius, M. D. & Day, N. L. (2001). The effects of tobacco use during and after pregnancy on exposed children. Alcohol Research and Health, 24(4), 242–9.Google Scholar
Department of Health. (2004). NHS Maternity Statistics, England: 2002–03. Bulletin 2004/10.
Dragonas, T. & Christodoulou, G. N. (1998). Prenatal care. Clinical Psychology Review, 18(2), 127–42.Google Scholar
Duckett, L., Henley, S., Avery, M.et al. (1998). A theory of planned behavior-based structural model for breast-feeding. Nursing Research, 47(6), 325–36.Google Scholar
Hofmeyr, G. I., Nikodem, V. C., Wolman, W. L., Chalmers, B. E. & Kramer, T. (1991). Companionship to modify the clinical birth environment: effects on progress and perceptions of labour and breast feeding. British Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 98, 756–64.Google Scholar
Janz, N. K. & Becker, M. H. (1984). The health belief model: a decade later. Health Education Quarterly, 11, 1–47.Google Scholar
Lazarus, R. S., Averill, J. R. & Opton, E. M. (1974). The psychology of coping: issues of research and assessment. In Coehio, G. V., Hamburg, D. A. & Adams, J. E. (Eds.). Coping and adaptation. New York: Basic Books.
Lidderdale, J. M. & Walsh, J. J. (1998). The effects of social support on cardiovascular reactivity and perinatal outcome. Psychology and Health, 13(6), 1061–70.Google Scholar
Montgomery, S. M. & Ekbom, A. (2002) Smoking during pregnancy and diabetes mellitus in a British longitudinal birth cohort. British Medical Journal, 324, 26–7.Google Scholar
Mulder, E. J. H., Medina, P. G., Huizink, A. C.et al. (2002). Prenatal maternal stress: effects on pregnancy and the (unborn) child. Early Human Development, 70(1–2), 3–14.Google Scholar
Newton, R. W. & Hunt, L. P. (1984). Psychosocial stress in pregnancy and its relation to low birthweight. British Medical Journal, 288, 1191–4.Google Scholar
Oakley, A. (1989). Smoking in pregnancy smokescreen or risk factor? Towards a materialist analysis. Sociology of Health and Illness, 11, 311–35.Google Scholar
Oakley, A., Hickey, D., Rajan, L. & Rigby, A. S. (1996). Social support in pregnancy: does it have long-term effects?Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, 14(1), 7–22.Google Scholar
Oakley, A. & Rajan, L. (1991). Social class and social support – the same or different?Sociology, 25(1), 31–59.Google Scholar
Owen, I. & Penn, G. (1999). Smoking and pregnancy: a survey of knowledge, attitudes and behaviour, 1992–9. London: Health Development Agency.
Peacock, J. L., Bland, J. M. & Anderson, H. R. (1995). Preterm delivery: effects of socioeconomic factors, psychological stress, smoking, alcohol, and caffeine. British Medical Journal, 311, 531–5.Google Scholar
Quine, L., Rutter, D. R. & Gowen, S. D. (1993). Women's satisfaction with the quality of the birth experience: a prospective study of social psychological predictors. Journal of Reproductive and Infant Psychology, 11, 107–13.Google Scholar
Reading, A. E., Campbell, S., Cox, D. M. & Sledmere, C. M. (1982). Health beliefs and health care behaviour in pregnancy. Psychological Medicine, 12, 79–83.Google Scholar
Renkert, S. & Nutbeam, D. (2001). Opportunities to improve maternal health literacy through antenatal education: an exploratory study. Health Promotion International, 16(4), 381–8.Google Scholar
Schuman, J. (1998). Childhood, infant and perinatal mortality, 1996; social and biological factors in deaths of children aged under 3. London: Office for National Statistics/Stationery Office.
Bergh, B. R. (1990). The influence of maternal emotions during pregnancy on fetal and neonatal behaviour. Journal of Prenatal and Perinatal Psychology and Health, 5(2), 119–30.Google Scholar
Wolkind, S. & Zajicek, E. (Eds.). (1981). Pregnancy: a psychosocial and social study. London: Academic Press.

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×