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Perceptions of Pregnancy and Early Motherhood

Page One

Are you in your second or third trimester (13 weeks onwards) of pregnancy and interested in taking part in research to help future mums? Then join in with this simple but important survey.

Nowadays there is a lot of pressure put on pregnant women and mums of young babies. Doctors, parenting guides, the media, other women, all have something to say on what you can and can’t do. But very little attention has been paid to what this does to women, how it affects their confidence, behaviour and emotions.

This study is designed to look at how these things combine to affect female emotional health in early motherhood. It is hoped that a better knowledge of the things that impact on women will help them to better understand their feelings and lead to more effective ways of dealing with things like postnatal depression.

We are aware that in helping you are making a significant time commitment, for which we are very grateful! Unfortunately our funding is very limited but as a thanks everyone taking part will be entered into a draw to win one of ten £10 Boots eGift vouchers.

The study is made up of three surveys between now and six months after you give birth. This first one is the longest and will take roughly 45 minutes. It doesn’t need to be done all in one go, if you wish to pause and return a later you may do so as many times as you like by selecting the 'Save and continue later' option at the top of each page. There are then two shorter ones for after you have your baby to follow up on your experiences, for this your email address will be requested.* You will only be entered into the draw if you complete all three surveys.

Your answers will remain ANONYMOUS** and STRICTLY CONFIDENTIAL. The surveys include a number of standard psychological tests for anxiety, stress, and depression which include a small number of questions about thoughts of harming yourself. Research into similar studies has found that a very small percentage of people may find taking part distressing. However many people, no matter what their emotional history is, actually find the experience to be positive. You may stop at any time and should you feel any distress a list of places from which to seek help can be found on the next page and also last page of each survey. This research has received ethical approval from the University of Kent's School of Anthropology and Conservation. Should you have any questions or wish to have your responses removed from the study for any reason please email motherhood@kent.ac.uk

*Your email address will remain strictly confidential, will not be used for any other purpose, will not appear in any data sets, will be stored securely and destroyed once the study is complete.**IP addresses will be recorded by the Surveygizmo website to stop multiple responses by the same user and will not be associated with your responses.