Maternal representations during pregnancy and early motherhood

The aim of the present study was to study the maternal representations of pregnant women and mothers in their early postpartum period, by beginning the process of validating the maternal representations questionnaire L'entretien R₁ and by developing a means to assess the content‐free aspects of the representations. Participants were 23 primiparous (first‐time mothers) pregnant women in their fourth to seventh month of pregnancy and 22 primiparous mothers in their early (zero to six months) postpartum period. It was found that the four subscales of L'entretien (self‐as‐mother, self‐as‐person, own‐mother, and partner) produced meaningful results for Turkish subjects. The results were compatible with the idea of integrated representations of self‐as‐person and self‐as‐mother even in the second trimester of their pregnancy and also showed that they could differentiate themselves from their mothers as early as that period. The results revealed no significant differences in the content and content‐free dimensions of the representations of pregnant women and mothers. ©2004 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.