Childbirth anxieties in the shadow of COVID‐19: Self‐compassion and social support among Jewish and Arab pregnant women in Israel

Abstract

The study examined two angles of childbirth anxieties of Jewish and Arab pregnant women in Israel during the COVID‐19 pandemic (March‐April, 2020). Specifically, we examined the contribution of personal resources: self‐compassion and perceived social support, as well as a couple of COVID‐19‐related fears of being infected and concern for the foetus, to both the woman's global fear of childbirth (FOC) and her COVID‐19‐related childbirth anxiety. Participants were Jewish and Arab pregnant women ( n = 403) aged 20–47, who completed a set of structured self‐report questionnaires from 18 March to 9 April 2020. Findings indicated that Arab women reported higher level of COVID‐19‐related childbirth anxiety and COVID‐19‐related fears of being infected and concern for the foetus. In addition, poorer health, being an Arab woman, being in the third trimester, lower self‐compassion, and higher COVID‐19‐related fears contributed significantly to greater COVID‐19‐related childbirth anxiety. Furthermore, poorer health, being primiparous, at‐risk pregnancy, lower self‐compassion and higher fear of being infected contributed significantly to greater FOC. Importantly, social support was found to moderate the association between self‐compassion and FOC. The results highlight the need to be attentive to pregnant women in times of crisis, and in particular to especially vulnerable subgroups, such as cultural minorities. They also highlight the importance of personal resources that may be applied in targeted interventions to reduce distress in vulnerable populations.

COVID-19 Lockdown and Mental Health in a Sample Population in Spain: The Role of Self-Compassion

“…There is solid empirical evidence that positive levels of self-compassion improve mental health [ 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 , 79 , 80 , 81 , 82 ] and lessen the negative consequences of psychological parameters such as stress, anxiety, and depression [ 28 , 31 , 34 , 83 , 84 , 85 , 86 , 87 , 88 , 89 ]. A review of the literature on epidemics that occurred in the last two decades shows that compassion is a positive strategy to deal with the negative impacts of these diseases [ 61 ].…”

Perinatal Mental Health during COVID-19 Pandemic: An Integrative Review and Implications for Clinical Practice

“…The Taubman-Ben-Ari et al's study, which compared Jewish and Arab pregnant women, showed that Arab women reported higher levels of COVID-19-related childbirth anxiety and global fear of childbirth [48]. In research of Gur et al [36], black women were found to be more likely to meet the criteria for depression than white women, but this difference was not significant when accounting for covariates.…”

“…Being a woman of color [36,54] Being an Arab woman [48] Education level (high- [49], low- [34,53]) Younger age [36,42] Financial Low income, financial difficulties [25,42] COVID-19-related financial stress and income loss [45,54] Unemployment [34,42] Factors concerning COVID-19…”

“…Stress of getting infected with COVID-19 [26,35,42,48,52,53] Suffering subjective symptoms of suspected infection [46] Perceived risk of having had COVID-19 [54] Having infected friends/families/colleagues [57] Self or family member being an essential worker [53] Living in a location with a large number of COVID-19 cases [46,53] Health state High-risk pregnancy [48,52,54] Chronic illness [54] Previous psychiatric diagnosis [25,31] Previous adverse experiences during pregnancy [57] Insufficient information No information about the effects of COVID-19 [34] Inconsistent messaging from information sources [35] Studies have offered various factors connected with increased risk of perinatal depression and anxiety. As it is shown in Table 3, women's worries were related to changes in regular perinatal care and lack of social contacts and support.…”

Positive psychology in a pandemic: buffering, bolstering, and building mental health

“…Showing compassion towards the continual uncertainty experienced as a result of the pandemic provides the sense of emotional safety needed to prevent being overtaken by fear. For instance, cross-sectional research demonstrates that people with more self-compassion felt less traumatized by COVID-19 (Jiménez et al, 2020) and had less COVID-19 related anxiety (Mohammadpour et al, 2020;Taubman-Ben-Ari et al, 2020, October 14). In addition, a cross-sectional study in Hong Kong (B. H. P. Lau et al, 2020) found that self-compassion served both a buffering and bolstering role by helping individuals to feel less threatened and distressed about the pandemic (i.e., buffering distress) and also by helping them see potential benefits to the situation such as having more time for relaxation (i.e., bolstering wellbeing).…”