Although there are a number of studies that have been done that focus on the baby shortly after birth and how they develop, there have been few researchers that look at how becoming a mother changes the woman. However, this study finally takes a look at a large sample of women and studies them before and after the birth of a child.
The study is limited as far as world-wide application goes since it only looked at women from Norway, but since it looked at nearly 85,000, it does give a good idea of what happens in a woman’s mind during pregnancy and the first few years of her child’s life, particularly when it comes to self-esteem. The women in this study were asked to periodically fill out a survey that evaluated several things.
It was found that most women experienced a decrease in their levels of self-esteem while they were pregnant, which then began to increase after birth until it reached its high point when their baby was 5 to 6 months old, and then started slowly decreasing again, hitting its lowest point around the child’s third birthday.
Although it’s unfortunate that this data isn’t more extensive, it still says a lot about what happens to a woman after giving birth, with a lot of emphasis being on her relationship with her partner. Because the study also asked about how satisfied they were with their partner, the link between the woman’s self-esteem and what was known as “relationship satisfaction” was found.
During a woman’s pregnancy, her satisfaction with her relationship generally remained steady, but then dropped quickly after the baby was born and continued to drop slowly over the next few years, though more slowly than the drop that happened right after the arrival of the baby. The theory by psychologists is that self-esteem is largely based on how socially-connected a person is.
Even though during pregnancy most of the women were satisfied with their relationships, there were other factors that led to an overall drop in self-esteem, including body-image issues due to their changing bodies and anxiety about the baby and giving birth. This shows that a woman’s self-esteem is not completely connected to her relationship with her partner.
The other anomaly happened during the first 6 months after birth when most mothers had an increase in self-esteem yet a decrease in relationship satisfaction. It is believed by the researchers that the reason for this is that a new mother gains a wide range of new skills as they learn to care for a baby. This sense of mastery provides them with a boost in self-esteem despite relationship problems.
At around 6 months, most babies are sleeping well through the night and have begun to explore the world yet don’t yet need to be disciplined, which makes it a joyous time for mothers. This is likely what leads to this being the high point in a mother’s self-esteem. Problems in the relationship have mostly evened out at this point from the post-birth craziness.
However, as babies begin to get more complicated after that and need more discipline and as relationships either remain the same or begin to slowly decline again, women begin to experience slow drops in self-esteem as they no longer feel like they’ve mastered parenting and as their relationship with their partner doesn’t become more satisfactory.
This information is as much for new fathers as it is mothers since relationship satisfaction is so closely related to a woman’s self-esteem. For that reason, if a partner wants his woman to be as happy and satisfied as possible, he needs to make sure he’s working to be supportive through every stage of pregnancy and motherhood as a woman goes through a number of huge life changes.
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About the Author: Originally from Michigan, Melody now enjoys working as a freelance writer from her home in Nicaragua, which she shares with her amazing husband and their crazy cat that was raised on goat’s milk from the time her mother abandoned her at just ten days old. They’re excited to be expecting their first baby, who they thought was a girl, were told was a boy, and then was told was a girl. She also recently finished her first novel and is working on making a cat coloring book.
