Abstract

Objective

Women can have fear of childbirth (FOC) in advance of their first pregnancy and such fear can have implications for reproductive and eventual childbirth choices. This study aims to further our understanding of the role of self-compassion in FOC in young childless women, including possible pathways through which self-compassion might relate to less FOC: through natural and medical birth beliefs.

Design and Main Outcome Measures

In this correlational study, 316 young childless Australian women completed measures of self-compassion, natural and medical birth beliefs, and FOC.

Results

Self-compassion predicted less FOC, and although self-compassion as a total score did not relate to natural birth beliefs, it did relate to lower scores on medical birth beliefs. The indirect effect through medical birth beliefs was supported; greater self-compassion predicted lower scores on medical birth beliefs, which in turn predicted less FOC.

Conclusions

The findings, although cross-sectional, support the study of self-compassion in FOC, which is in part because self-compassion predicts less medical birth beliefs. With further research, self-compassion training might be incorporated into public health initiatives targeting FOC in young childless women.

中文翻译：

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自我同情预示着无子女妇女对分娩的恐惧减少：出生信念的中介作用

摘要

客观的

女性在第一次怀孕之前可能会害怕分娩（FOC），这种恐惧可能会对生育和最终的分娩选择产生影响。本研究旨在进一步了解自我同情在无子女年轻女性 FOC 中的作用，包括自我同情与较少 FOC 相关的可能途径：通过自然和医学出生信念。

设计和主要成果措施

在这项相关性研究中，316 名无子女的澳大利亚年轻女性完成了自我同情、自然和医学出生信念以及 FOC 的测量。

结果

自我同情预示着更少的 FOC，虽然自我同情作为总分与自然出生信念无关，但它确实与医学出生信念的较低分数有关。支持医学出生信念的间接影响；更大的自我同情预示着医学出生信念的得分较低，这反过来又预示着更少的 FOC。

结论

这些发现虽然是横断面的，但支持 FOC 中自我慈悲的研究，部分原因是自我慈悲预示着较少的医学出生信念。随着进一步的研究，自我同情培训可能会被纳入针对年轻无子女妇女 FOC 的公共卫生计划中。