Emotional problems at the stages of reproductive choice: from planning to postpartum depression

The article is devoted to analysis of the main features of the psycho-emotional state of women and its regulation at different stages of reproductive decision-making: pregnancy planning, pregnancy preservation, childbirth. For a long time, the emotional characteristics of these periods remained an individual problem that went beyond the interests of society. With a high unregulated birth rate, emotions attracted attention only in connection with conditions that physically threaten a woman’s life and her subsequent fertility. Today, the relevance of the topic is due to the institutional equivalence of all options for reproductive choice — from conscious refusal to give birth to children, natural pregnancy and independent childbirth to in vitro fertilization (IVF) using donor cells, pregnancy with the help of surrogate mothers, cryopreservation of embryos for «delayed births», and so on. All of them are characterized by emotional stress, the mitigation of which is possible taking into account the peculiarities at each stage of reproductive choice and the social nature of reproductive decisions. In the context of the pronatal demographic policy, which involves expanding the scope of socio-economic assistance to families with children, two groups of the population who refuse to procreate are of interest: women who are afraid of childbirth, and patients with infertility. Abortion is emotionally flawed, because, even performed by qualified specialists, it allows to preserve woman’s reproductive health, but it is often accompanied by personal problems that are not considered as a deviation from the population norm; this is how abortion differs from the pathological fear of childbirth, which was classified as an independent phobia («tokophobia») in 2000. Current reproductive plans at the stage of decision on artificial termination of pregnancy are considered antinatal, although they may change in the future, therefore psychological assistance should be aimed at «forming reproductive attitudes of adolescents and mitigating the consequences of stigmatization of abortions. Similar measures are also effective in the treatment of postpartum depression.

reproductive behavior, childbirth, abortion, emotional health, psycho-emotional state