{"id":161717,"date":"2020-06-11T07:17:39","date_gmt":"2020-06-11T11:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=161717"},"modified":"2020-06-10T10:26:08","modified_gmt":"2020-06-10T14:26:08","slug":"nurse-researcher-studying-womens-experiences-giving-birth-covid-19-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2020\/06\/nurse-researcher-studying-womens-experiences-giving-birth-covid-19-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"Nurse Researcher Studying Women\u2019s Experiences Giving Birth During COVID-19 Pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Giving birth can be stressful at the best of times, but giving birth during a pandemic? That is a whole other level.<\/p>\n

A researcher at the University of Connecticut School of Nursing is just beginning to dive into the emotional and psychological impacts COVID-19 is having on mothers with newborn children. Distinguished professor Cheryl Beck<\/a> is collaborating on an internet study with Deepika Goyal, an OB\/GYN nurse practitioner and a professor at San Jos\u00e9 State University.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s looking at the impact of COVID-19 on women giving birth, and then also in the beginning postpartum period,\u201d Beck says. \u201cBecause some of the hospitals will only allow the partner to come in, mothers can\u2019t have this normal support system that they wanted to.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study is open to women over the age of 18 who gave birth Feb. 1, 2020, or later, according to its website<\/a>. Beck and Goyal explain to the women that they are \u201cconducting this study to hear about your experiences at the time of your baby’s birth and the first few weeks after the birth during the COVID-19 pandemic.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a mixed methods study, the researchers are collecting both quantitative and qualitative data. They\u2019ll be using instruments to measure participants\u2019 post-traumatic stress levels and postpartum depression levels. The researchers will be using the Postpartum Depression Screening Scale that Beck has developed, but will also ask mothers to describe their experiences. As of early June, Beck and Goyal had 50 women who had completed both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of the study.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re going to be using content analysis to look for themes, repetitive patterns,\u201d says Beck, who specializes in qualitative analysis.<\/p>\n

For decades, Beck\u2019s research has focused on the mental health issues mothers face before, during and after birth \u2014 especially traumatic births.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve done a number of studies on post-traumatic stress after giving birth,\u201d Beck says. \u201cThese women giving birth during the pandemic may not develop full-blown PTSD, but I would think they would have some of the symptoms of someone going through a stressful period.\u201d<\/p>\n

For more information about Beck and Goyal\u2019s study, or if you\u2019re interested in participating, visit <\/em>www.newmomsandcovid19.com<\/em><\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n

Beck holds a DNSc from Boston University and an MSN in maternal newborn nursing and a CNM from Yale University in Nurse-Midwifery. She holds a joint appointment in the UConn School of Medicine\u2019s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A researcher at the University of Connecticut School of Nursing is beginning to dive into the emotional and psychological impacts COVID-19 is having on mothers with newborn children.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":161679,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2213,1877,2231,2225],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[2217],"class_list":["post-161717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-coronavirus","category-nur","category-health-well-being","category-uconn-storrs"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 07:18:44","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/141"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":161718,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161717\/revisions\/161718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/161679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161717"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=161717"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=161717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}