Extent of husbands' participation in childbearing among women who delivered at West Visayas State University Medical Center (WVSUMC)

Abstract

This study was conducted to determine the extent of husband’s participation in childbearing among women who delivered at WVSUMC. It further aimed to determine whether extent of husband’s participation in childbearing vary in terms of the wife’s personal characteristics such as age, educational attainment and parity and husband’s characteristics such as his age, educational attainment and occupation. This study is a descriptive relational investigation of the extent of husband’s participation in childbearing. Using the one shot survey design 150 women who delivered normally and admitted between September and October, 2005 at West Visayas State University Medical Center were personally interviewed using a structured interview schedule. Data were computer processed and analyzed using frequency distributions and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). Findings of the study are the following: 1. The profile of the mothers covered in this study disclosed that majority of them were young adult, predominantly college level or college graduate. Slightly more than one-half were multipara as far as parity is concerned. The husbands of slightly more than one-half of the mothers were young adults, college educated and skilled workers. 2. During prepartal stage, the women’s husbands had a great extent of physical participation in caring for their wives. They make sure that their wives get enough rest and they provided them with comfortable room. They reminded their wives of their schedule to take medicine, bought fruits or favorite food, reminded them to watch their weight to some extent, and massaged their wives back, head, legs and arms to some extent. As to emotional/psychological participation, the husbands also participated to a great extent, by telling their wives how proud they were of them, assured their wives of their love, lifted their wive’s spirit by listening to their jokes/stories, showed considerations to wives’ mood swings by keeping their temper in check, and demonstrate caring and loving attitude towards wife by kissing, embracing/hugging them. 3. Husbands physically participated to a great extent during the intrapartal stage, specifically by accompanying wives to the hospital and staying outside the delivery room serving as an “errand” to their wives. However, the emotional and psychological participation of the husbands during the intrapartal childbearing stage was limited. 4. At postpartal stage, the physical participation of husbands was to a great extent only in making sure that wives take the right food by buying fruits and favorite food. The emotional and psychological participation of the husbands was only to some extent specifically by praising wife for a job well done, assuring wife of presence while asleep, making wife laugh, wiping wife’s sweat and to a great extent by listening to wife’s childbirth experiences and stories. 5. Results of one-way ANOVA showed no significant differences in the extent of husbands’ physical participation during the pre-, intra-partal and postpartal stages of childbearing, when the wives were classified according to age. The same result holds true for the husbands’ emotional and psychological participation during all stages of childbearing. However, when the wives were classified according to their educational attainment, there is significant differences on the extent of husbands’ physical, and emotional and psychological participation during the pre- and postpartal stages, but not during the intrapartal stage. When the wives were classified according to parity, no significant differences was found in the extent of husbands’ physical participation during the three stages of childbearing. However, there were significant differences on the husbands’ emotional and psychological participation during the pre-partal and post partal stages but not during the intrapartal stage. 6. When the husbands were classified according to age, no significant differences was found in the extent of the husbands’ physical, and emotional and psychological participation during the three stages of their wives’ childbearing. When the husbands were classified according to educational attainment, significant differences were found in the extent of husbands’ participation during prepartal stage, but not during intrapartal and postpartal stages of their wives childbearing. As to the husbands’ emotional and psychological participation, the extent of the husbands’ participation significantly varied with their educational attainment during all stages of the wives’ childbearing. When the husbands were classified according to occupation, ANOVA obtained no significant differences among the husbands’ physical, and emotional and psychological participation during the three stages of their wives’ childbearing. Conclusions Based on the aforementioned findings the following conclusions were reached: The wives and their husbands are young adult and college graduates. They are multiparous and their husbands are skilled workers. There was a limited extent of husband’s physical, emotional and psychological participation during the intrapartal stage but a great extent of during the prepartal and postpartal stages. The extent of physical and emotional and psychological participation of husbands during the childbearing of their wives at pre-, intra-, and postpartal stages of childbearing showed no significant difference when classified with their wives’ age and the husband’s age and occupation. Although physical and emotional/psychological participation of husbands during the pre- and postpartal childbearing stages significantly vary with the educational attainment of the wives, the emotional and psychological participation of husbands during childbearing stages of their wives significantly vary with the educational attainment of the husbands. On the other hand, the emotional and psychological participation of husbands during the pre- and postpartal stage significantly vary with parity of their wives but not during the physical participation. It can be concluded that the higher the educational attainment of the wives, the greater is the husbands’ participation. Likewise, if the wife is a primipara, the more likely the husband participates in childbearing. However, the extent of husband’s physical participation during the prepartal stage significantly differed with the husbands’ educational attainment but not during the intrpartal and postpartal stages.