By Rutgers University, Science Daily, December 16, 2019
The study appears in the journal Psychology of Women Quarterly.
About 15 percent of pregnancies worldwide are high-risk, making premature delivery, low infant birth weight and other poor outcomes more likely. In the United States, 10 percent of pregnant women require hospitalization because they have hyperemesis gravidarum, pre-eclampsia, kidney infections, gestational diabetes or are at risk for imminent delivery, among other conditions.
Rutgers researchers say keeping anxiety and stress to a minimum during pregnancy is important but is especially critical for high-risk pregnancies where it is believed to be a factor in premature birth.
The researchers interviewed 16 women hospitalized during high-risk pregnancies and found that trying to manage their emotions by themselves added an additional burden to an already stressful experience. The in-depth interviews are designed to elicit rich interpersonal data. A sample of 16 is typical of the phenomenological research method they used.
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