The Effect of a Childcare Education for First-time Mothers on Newborn Care Behavior and Confidence in Maternal Role

초산모를 위한 육아 교육이 어머니의 신생아 양육행동과 어머니 역할에 대한 자신감에 미치는 효과

The postpartum is a period of transition to motherhood where a childless woman transforms into a woman with children. Parents, especially mothers must perform an essential role of implementing instrumental and emotional care behaviors on part of the helpless, dependent, and immature infant. First-time mothers, however, suddenly face the responsibility of round the clock duty without neither parenting training during pregnancy, nor a time to gradually adapt to growing responsibilities after birth, with confusion and frustration as a result. Thus, after providing first-time mothers with childcare education as maternal role preparation, this study will try to examine its effects on childcare behaviors and confidence in maternal role during the early postpartum period. This quasi-experimental study using a nonequivalent control group non-synchronized design, was carried out from March 1995 to May 1996 to verify the effects of a childcare education program with first-time mothers who had vaginal delivery in Ewha University Hospital, Seoul, Korea, and collected data from 60 subjects who consented to the study. The education was given in the early postpartum period(48-72 hours after delivery) and to measure its effects, a posttest was done 4 weeks later with the results analyzed by SPSS shown in the following : 1. The childcare behavior score of the experimental group that had received the newborn care education was higher than the control group(t=3.5, P=.001). 2. The control group and the experimental group which had received the education showed no difference in degree of confidence in maternal role. 3. The higher the childcare behavior score, the higher the degree of confidence in maternal role was among the subjects(r=.56, P=.001). The preceding results are significant in that childcare practices can be promoted by providing child-care education to first-time mothers in the early postpartum period. Thus, this education can be used as a nursing intervention strategy in the early postpartum period.