by Gayle Peterson, LCSW, PhD
The question may be raised... whether the improvement in medical management, in lessening the physical dangers of pregnancy, has contributed to a waning concern with the concomitant psychological changes." Greta Bibring (1959)

The biological processes of pregnancy and childbirth ready a woman for motherhood psychologically as well as physically. The birth of a baby is the birth of family. A myriad of births take place at once: women become mothers, husbands become fathers, and so on. One birth ripples through generations, creating subtle shifts and rearrangements in the family web.

Pregnancy and childbirth presents women with an opportunity for profound insight and self-understanding. Yet this stage of the family life cycle has gone unrecognized and unnamed. The perinatal stage has its own developmental tasks and unique characteristics. Forging an identity as a parent from past experience is one such task that a woman faces as she crosses the threshold to motherhood. The impact of the childbirth process significantly aids or hinders this process. This stage is indeed a critical period of the family life-cycle which deserves attention apart from the stages that follow: rearing young children, raising teenagers, and launching young adults. Pregnancy and giving birth form an extremely fertile time in the family's life cycle, providing an opportunity for needed adjustments in beliefs, attitudes, and family relationships to occur. As most family therapists are fully aware, transitions are periods of tremendous growth and activity, which can either result in new kinds of adjustment in healthy family systems, or in maladjustments that repeat, causing developmental delays and emotional pain.

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