Perinatal Experiences of Asian American Women During COVID-19

Purpose: To explore the wellbeing, pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum experiences of Asian American women who gave birth during the COVID-19 pandemic. Study Design: Qualitative exploratory design. Methods: Using convenience and snowball sampling, we recruited Asian American women who gave birth during the COVID-19 pandemic via social media. Participants completed sociodemographic and depressive symptom questionnaires and took part in a virtual semistructured interview where they were asked to describe their pregnancy, birth, and postpartum experiences in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Qualitative content analysis methods were used to identify themes from participant narratives. Results: Thirty-eight Asian American women representing several racial ethnic subgroups (Asian Indian, Chinese, Filipino, Hmong, Laotian, Vietnamese) participated in our study. Participants were on average 34 (SD = 3.5) years of age; the majority were married and lived in California. At the time of data collection, participants were 3.7 (SD = 2.07) months postpartum and 5.3 to 10.5 months into the COVID-19 pandemic. Qualitative content analysis revealed two main themes: 1) unexpected perinatal journey, and 2) the emotional and psychological consequences of COVID-19. Clinical Implications: Our findings are not unique to Asian American women, but they offer insight for nurses taking care of all childbearing women. Nurses can provide individually tailored anticipato...
Source: MCN: The American Journal of Maternal Child Nursing - Category: Nursing Tags: Feature Source Type: research