Postpartum depression and life experiences of mothers with an immigrant background living in the south of Sweden

ABSTRACT

Purpose

Postpartum Depression (PPD) —a common health problem for mothers’ postpartum increases the risk of negative interaction between mothers and infants as it reduces the former’s ability to respond to the latter’s needs appropriately. Migrant mothers exhibit a higher prevalence of risk factors for PPD. Hence, this study aimed to investigate migrant mothers’ life experiences pertaining to motherhood and PPD.

Methods

Qualitative interviews were conducted with 10 immigrant mothers in the south of Sweden during 2021.

Results

The qualitative content analysis revealed the following main themes: 1) PPD (two sub themes—psychosomatic symptoms and burden of responsibility due to feelings of loneliness); 2) mistrust of social services (one sub-theme—afraid of losing their children and Swedish social services’ lack of understanding); 3) inadequate healthcare (two sub-themes—limited healthcare literacy for migrant mothers and language barrier; 4) women’s coping strategy for well-being (two sub-themes—better awareness and understanding of the Swedish system and society, and freedom and independence in the new country).

Conclusions

PPD, mistrust of social services, and inadequate healthcare lacking personal continuity were common among immigrant women, thus precipitating discrimination—including lack of access to services because of limited health literacy, cultural differences, language barriers, and insufficient support.

KEYWORDS:

• Depression
• integration
• health literacy
• life experiences
• migrated mothers
• postpartum depression: psychosomatic symptoms
• qualitative study

Acknowledgments

The authors thank all mothers who participated in this study for their willingness to share their experiences. Moreover, we thank Integration Developer Therese Jaramillo, Växjö municipality, Senior advisor in collaboration with Elin Lindqvist Linnaeus University and project leader, Alexander Willstedt for the Integrations project— “Between Mothers.”

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Additional information

Funding

This work was conducted in cooperation with Växjö Municipality, which also provided partial financial support for the study

Notes on contributors

Maude Johansson

Maude Johansson is psychologist/psychotherapist and PhD. She teaches and research in the area of infant and family psychology, postpartum depression, depression and parental stress during the early childhood years, which factors influence long-term depression and parental stress during and after parenthood.

Kajsa Ledung Higgins

Kajsa Higgins senior University lecturer. Experiences of teaching Swedish to immigrants in Sweden, volunteer work in Namibia and Kenya and several years as international coordinator at the Department of Education at Swedish University.

Leoine Dapi Nzefa

Leonie Dapi Nzefa is associated professor in health sciences. She teaches and do research on global health, social work, gender inequalities and nutrition.

Ylva Benderix

Ylva Benderix, Reg nurse, reg psychotherapist/family therapist, PhD in Nursing Science. She teaches in family psychotherapy and has extensive experience in teaching and supervising staff who work with immigrants.