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Young parents’ experiences of pregnancy and parenting during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study in the United Kingdom

Young parents (aged 16–24 years) in the perinatal period are at an increased risk of poor mental health especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, due to multiple risk factors including social and economic instability. COVID-19 related restrictions had profound implications for the delivery of perinat...

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Autores principales: Moltrecht, Bettina, Dalton, Louise J., Hanna, Jeffrey R., Law, Clare, Rapa, Elizabeth
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8927525/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35300654
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12892-9
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author Moltrecht, Bettina
Dalton, Louise J.
Hanna, Jeffrey R.
Law, Clare
Rapa, Elizabeth
author_facet Moltrecht, Bettina
Dalton, Louise J.
Hanna, Jeffrey R.
Law, Clare
Rapa, Elizabeth
author_sort Moltrecht, Bettina
collection PubMed
description Young parents (aged 16–24 years) in the perinatal period are at an increased risk of poor mental health especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, due to multiple risk factors including social and economic instability. COVID-19 related restrictions had profound implications for the delivery of perinatal care services and other support structures for young parents. Investigating young parents’ experiences during the pandemic, including their perceived challenges and needs, is important to inform good practice and provide appropriate support for young parents. Qualitative interviews were conducted with young parents (n = 21) during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom from February – May 2021. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Three key themes were identified to describe parents’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Parents reported specific COVID-19 related anxieties and stressors, including worries around contracting the virus and increased feelings of distress due to uncertainty created by the implications of the pandemic. Parents described feeling alone both at home and during antenatal appointments and highlighted the absence of social support as a major area of concern. Parents also felt their perinatal care had been disrupted by the pandemic and experienced difficulties accessing care online or over the phone. This study highlights the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on young parents, including their mental wellbeing and the perinatal support they were able to access. Insights from this study can inform the support and services offered to families going forward. Specifically, the findings emphasise the importance of (a) supporting both parents during perinatal appointments, (b) providing parents with mental health support early on and (c) finding ways to facilitate communication pathways between professionals and parents.
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spelling pubmed-89275252022-03-17 Young parents’ experiences of pregnancy and parenting during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study in the United Kingdom Moltrecht, Bettina Dalton, Louise J. Hanna, Jeffrey R. Law, Clare Rapa, Elizabeth BMC Public Health Research Young parents (aged 16–24 years) in the perinatal period are at an increased risk of poor mental health especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, due to multiple risk factors including social and economic instability. COVID-19 related restrictions had profound implications for the delivery of perinatal care services and other support structures for young parents. Investigating young parents’ experiences during the pandemic, including their perceived challenges and needs, is important to inform good practice and provide appropriate support for young parents. Qualitative interviews were conducted with young parents (n = 21) during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom from February – May 2021. Data were analysed using thematic analysis. Three key themes were identified to describe parents’ experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic. Parents reported specific COVID-19 related anxieties and stressors, including worries around contracting the virus and increased feelings of distress due to uncertainty created by the implications of the pandemic. Parents described feeling alone both at home and during antenatal appointments and highlighted the absence of social support as a major area of concern. Parents also felt their perinatal care had been disrupted by the pandemic and experienced difficulties accessing care online or over the phone. This study highlights the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on young parents, including their mental wellbeing and the perinatal support they were able to access. Insights from this study can inform the support and services offered to families going forward. Specifically, the findings emphasise the importance of (a) supporting both parents during perinatal appointments, (b) providing parents with mental health support early on and (c) finding ways to facilitate communication pathways between professionals and parents. BioMed Central 2022-03-17 /pmc/articles/PMC8927525/ /pubmed/35300654 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12892-9 Text en © The Author(s) 2022 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Moltrecht, Bettina
Dalton, Louise J.
Hanna, Jeffrey R.
Law, Clare
Rapa, Elizabeth
Young parents’ experiences of pregnancy and parenting during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study in the United Kingdom
title Young parents’ experiences of pregnancy and parenting during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study in the United Kingdom
title_full Young parents’ experiences of pregnancy and parenting during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study in the United Kingdom
title_fullStr Young parents’ experiences of pregnancy and parenting during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study in the United Kingdom
title_full_unstemmed Young parents’ experiences of pregnancy and parenting during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study in the United Kingdom
title_short Young parents’ experiences of pregnancy and parenting during the COVID-19 pandemic: a qualitative study in the United Kingdom
title_sort young parents’ experiences of pregnancy and parenting during the covid-19 pandemic: a qualitative study in the united kingdom
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8927525/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35300654
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12889-022-12892-9
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