The birth of a story: Childbirth experiences, meaning-making, and postpartum adjustment

The present study investigated how meaning-making around a birth experience predicts relationship quality and parenting stress across the transition to first-time parenthood, a time that many new parents find stressful and challenging. Childbirth experiences may set the stage for these challenges, and how new parents make meaning of childbirth could play a role in their subsequent postpartum adjustment. Meaning-making processes (sense making, benefit finding, and changes in identity) were coded from birth narratives collected from 77 mixed-sex biological parent dyads (n = 154 individuals) shortly after the birth of their first child. Parents reported on their relationship quality during pregnancy and at 6 months postpartum, and on their parenting stress postpartum. Mothers' greater sense making and benefit finding buffered longitudinal declines in their own relationship quality, and maternal sense making also buffered declines for fathers. Fathers' greater sense making and benefit finding predicted lower levels of their own parenting stress, whereas mothers' greater sense making and benefit finding were linked with higher paternal parenting stress. Finally, fathers' discussion of changes in identity predicted lower levels of parenting stress in mothers. These results suggest the importance of meaning-making following childbirth for couples adjusting to parenthood and highlight the value of studying meaning-making processes dyadically. Clinicians may be able to support new parents by facilitating their coconstruction of meaning during their shared birth experience and transition to parenthood. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved).