Research Article
“Let Me Know If You Need Anything”: Support Realities of New Mothers
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1145/3154862.3154863, author={Annu Prabhakar and Lucia Guerra-Reyes and Anne Effron and Vanessa Kleinschmidt and Maggie Driscoll and Charles Peters and Vanessa Pereira and Majdah Alshehri and Tom Ongwere and Katie Siek}, title={“Let Me Know If You Need Anything”: Support Realities of New Mothers}, proceedings={11th EAI International Conference on Pervasive Computing Technologies for Healthcare}, publisher={ACM}, proceedings_a={PERVASIVEHEALTH}, year={2018}, month={1}, keywords={new mothers; pregnancy; remote populations; social support;postpartum depression; facebook groups; arc method;facebook study}, doi={10.1145/3154862.3154863} }- Annu Prabhakar
Lucia Guerra-Reyes
Anne Effron
Vanessa Kleinschmidt
Maggie Driscoll
Charles Peters
Vanessa Pereira
Majdah Alshehri
Tom Ongwere
Katie Siek
Year: 2018
“Let Me Know If You Need Anything”: Support Realities of New Mothers
PERVASIVEHEALTH
ACM
DOI: 10.1145/3154862.3154863
Abstract
This paper presents findings from a study conducted with 48 pregnant and new mothers to understand their support needs and support sources. We engaged 10 first-time pregnant women, 20 pregnant mothers, and 18 new mothers in eight weeks of research activities using closed Facebook groups. The activities included surveys, open ended questions, creative tasks, and discussions. Our findings indicate that mothers most value instrumental support: physical help in tasks, such as laundry and cooking. Our findings also show that support needs and support sources of women evolve as they go through pregnancy, childbirth, and stages of motherhood. Informed by these findings, we propose a design framework - the Evolving Ecology of Support (EES) - and provide examples on how the Pervasive Health community can develop empowering and support enabling solutions.