Prepared childbirth and marital satisfaction during the antepartum and postpartum periods.

A longitudinal study of 105 couples, this study addresses whether there is a change in marital satisfaction throughout the perinatal period and whether any changes in the marriage or the labor and delivery might be attributable to the type of preparation for childbirth engaged in by the couple. Analysis of the demographic variables indicated that the groups were very similar. The only difference was that the Lamaze women had 16 years and the hospital-instructed women had 15 years of education (p less than 0.048). ANCOVA analysis indicated that there was not a significant difference in the couple or female score from the 24-28 weeks of pregnancy to 3-21 days postpartum, but there was a significant difference (p less than 0.04) in the male score after taking Lamaze vs. hospital-based classes. With both the husbands and wives there was an improvement in the marital satisfaction from 24-36 weeks of pregnancy to 3-21 days postpartum. When the initial level of marital satisfaction was controlled statistically, no correlation was found between the couples marriage score and the male and female years of education, age, SES, length of labor, medication in labor, and choice of rooming-in. The labor variables indicated that the Lamaze group had a slightly longer labor than the hospital group, but they used significantly less medication (p less than 0.05) and chose rooming-in more often (p less than 0.06).