| dc.description.abstract | “Crossroads at the Cradle” explores how new mothers with immigrant parents in Norway (often referred to as "second-generation immigrants") navigate postpartum recovery, support, and care through six semi-structured interviews with women in Norway with parents from Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. The postpartum period is a critical and vulnerable time for new mothers, whose physical and psychosocial health and well-being depend on managing the various resources necessary to meet their baby’s needs in addition to their own as they recover from childbirth and transition to motherhood. Yet postpartum care in Norway has been linked to lower satisfaction compared to maternity care overall, as health management policy has driven down length of stay in hospital after delivery, shifting the burdens of postnatal care increasingly onto municipal healthcare providers and the private sphere. Evidence shows that migrant women in Norway experience significant maternal health disparities, but public health- and social science research on second-generation immigrant women, now increasingly entering their family-forming years, remains very limited. The increased scrutiny of Norway’s system of care for postpartum mothers, as second-generation immigrant women are increasingly joining their ranks, makes the aims of this study, which offers an essential cross-cultural perspective on postpartum support and care configurations, gaps, and mobilization strategies in an increasingly multicultural Norway, both timely and compelling. The qualitative data from this study shows that securing the social support necessary for recovery and transition to motherhood can be a complex and at times contentious process for women with immigrant parents. The participants drew upon support from different members of their social network for instrumental, informational, emotional, and appraisal support. The mothers experienced that traditional postpartum care practices carried out by their families and kinship networks, which often center on maternal recovery and health promotion, provided significant instrumental support, but reported being poorly prepared for the difficulties of the postpartum period, such as pain symptoms, breastfeeding, and challenges to their emotional well-being. Mothers in the study described high motivation and internalized pressure to breastfeed, but experienced lack of guidance from health personnel and advice from family members that did not support or affirm their breastfeeding. Individualized guidance from health personnel was desired as a valuable source of both informational and appraisal support, but insufficient health personnel capacity and competency often made this support inaccessible, putting a greater onus on new mothers to appraise and negotiate guidance from online resources and their families. Guarding their parental authority was a key motivation in mothers’ negotiation of support from family and kin. Mothers looked to partners for emotional support, and peers for appraisal support. The women’s experience demonstrate that belonging is an important condition for deriving appraisal support, and lack of belonging may impede the supportive value of mother’s groups to women with multicultural backgrounds. The findings in this study suggest a need for service provision that better prepares expectant mothers for the challenges of the postpartum period, provides individualized care, support, and guidance during the postpartum period that promotes their ability to mobilize and negotiate support from their social networks and meets their instrumental, informational, emotional, and appraisal support needs. | eng |