Maternal concerns: what are they?

If one strives to provide care for the mother as a person adjusting to a major life change, then one needs to know more about the particular concerns of mothers of newborns. Open-ended interviews with mothers of newborns provided a list of basic concerns, which was then used to create a self-administered check-list. Eighty-four mothers of newborns revealed that their top three concerns were "feeling exhausted," "amount of time as a couple," and "body weight." These concerns were similar for many subgroups of mothers except when the babies were older than 10 weeks of age. Paradoxically, physicians and nurses providing post-partum care are not seen as sources of help for any of the 10 most frequent concerns reported by the mothers.