Men s confrontation with pregnancy from women s point of view: An ethno phenomenological study

Introduction: Pregnancy is an extremely important event for women. In providing pregnancy services particular attention is given to the mother and her infant and less consideration is paid to the role of men. In general, men’s confrontation with their wife’s pregnancy and their involvement in caring for pregnant women have been underestimated in the Iranian cultural context. For this reason, this study aimed to explore how men are confronted with pregnancy from pregnant women’s point of view in Iran Method: This study was conducted using an ethno-phenomenological approach. 25 Pregnant women with maximum variation recruited via the purposeful sampling during 2016-2017 from health centers, hospitals, and private obstetric clinics in Mashhad, Iran. In-depth semi-structured interviews (n=25), vignettes (n=13) as well as observation were used for data collection. The data were organized with MAXQDA software version 10 and analyzed using van Manen descriptive- interpretive phenomenological approach Results: The main theme emerged was: adaptation, skillfulness and self-actualization of man in confrontation with pregnancy . This was derived from two themes: 1) spouse s emotional engagement including subcategories of spouse emotional confrontation with pregnancy occurrence, man s sentimentality following being an expectant father, husband s confrontation with wife s motherhood, man s emotional excitement seeing the symptoms of fetal survival, husband s gender orientation and 2) Concentration, vigilance and active efforts of spouse during pregnancy with subcategories of managing wife towards successful pregnancy, effort to acquire paternal skills and pregnancy as an issue to expand spouse s mental horizons. Conclusion: In addition to an overwhelming sense of emotion, men tend to be supportive in managing successful pregnancy. It seems that pregnancy as an opportunity window develops thinking, vision and horizons of life among men and increases their sense of responsibility. It seems that by promoting male participation in pregnancy care, important steps could be taken towards delivering services for pregnant women to improve maternal and infant health using spouses support.

Keywords:

Pregnancy- women- Men , - Ethno phenomenology