Enhancing Family Cohesion across the Childbearing Year

May 5, 2016

Developing family identity and navigating parenthood by growing and maintaining emotional intimacy

Emotionally healthy pregnancies can serve to support safer and more satisfying birth outcomes.  Certainly, this is not to say that nutrition, exercise, and heredity don’t play a part in the realization of a safer and more satisfying birth.  People (pregnant women or not) tend to feel emotionally well when they perceive deeper connection with themselves and others and such connection impacts one’s physical well-being in a positive way, too.  It makes sense, then, that a woman’s labor, birth, and postpartum experiences are also enhanced when there is an overall sense of emotional intimacy which has been developed by the collective efforts of her and her  support network.  When a person feels emotionally strong, oftentimes, their sense of physical safety and security feels stable, too.  During pregnancy, labor, birth, postpartum, and even early parenthood, such feelings are quite health and life-sustaining to mother and baby.  As has been mentioned in previous blog posts, an emotionally healthy pregnancy and an emotionally healthy labor and delivery, partly resulting from adequate social support, have been shown to affect the physical and emotional growth and development of both the unborn and developing child of any age.

Across the childbearing year and moving through the terrain of early parenthood, we will be given many opportunities to tap into research findings which pertain to emotional intimacy and healthy relationships.  This research collectively urges us to deepen our understanding of the potential importance of Values Identification, Self-Advocacy (and Other-Advocacy), Education, and Support and how these concepts might act to serve the best needs of pregnant women and their growing families. 

Values Identification

Assessing and talking about options which enhance personalization, meaning, and feelings of ownership in pregnancy, labor and birth, postpartum, early parenthood, AND life by

·         Choosing to share the news of pregnancy with family and friends at a time not dictated by society nor family history but that makes sense to you

·         Trying out new foods that are known to nourish pregnant bodies and their passengers and being aware of how those foods impact your body and your baby

·         Taking the time to look more closely at relationships and measure quality, resilience, and longevity by using values assessment tools to develop and/or improve them

The Gottman Institute, (http://www.gottman.com), an organization developed out of a strong desire to assist couples and families in navigating the journey of relationships more meaningfully, safely, and lovingly, devised a card deck called “52 Questions Before Marriage or Moving In”.  The goal of the deck (referred to as a “game”, in some places) is to give couples the opportunity to consider and brainstorm topics that don’t always get addressed at the front end of relationships – family of origin history, work ethic, team work, personal strengths and weaknesses, and various types of personal preferences, are all things that get addressed in this relationship tool. 

In looking at the several questions listed below, it’s not hard to see how expressing interest in another’s life by exploring subjects like these could serve to jump start, fertilize, and/or unearth the emotional intimacy required in all successful relationships.  Of course, the level of emotional intimacy required in our many relationships varies depending upon who, what, when, where, and why.  For example, the one-time “relationship” we have with a cashier requires less emotional intimacy for a pleasant interaction to occur than, say, the  relationship we have with our child’s teachers.  A bit more emotional intimacy needed to maintain positivity is required in our relationships with our parents.  However, the greatest level of emotional intimacy may be required (relationship specific) when we consider how to care for and maintain cohesion in our relationships with dear friends and/or our intimate partners.      

You may or may not have thought about and/or discussed questions similar to the ones to follow, as they relate to potentially deepening relationships with others.  Perhaps you have thought about broaching some or all of the topics with various individuals across your lifespan, but later decided that to bring up such topics would be inappropriate.  Although asking questions of people might at first seem counterintuitive to your personal philosophy, in reality asking people (even the cashier at the grocery store) these and other questions consistently serves to enhance ours and others sense of belonging and feelings of being cared for.  Again, such feelings of human connection and emotional intimacy do nothing but enhance mental, emotional, physical, and even spiritual health for all of us, whether we are traveling the path of the childbearing year or not.      

Questions from Gottman’s deck of cards include:

·         In what ways do you operate well as a team? In what ways could you improve?  Do you tend to be a leader or follower?

·         How does our relationship differ than those that haven’t worked out?

·         What are your main strategies for coping with tough financial times?  Who are some of your financial role models?

Other inquiries which tend to speak more directly to pregnancy, labor, birth, postpartum, and early parenting include the following: 

·         What are your fears, if any, about your ability to act as a support person during labor and birth? 

·         What kind of relationship do you look forward to having with my/our baby? 

·         What are your dreams for your own future, our future?

·         How would you suggest we divvy up the chores once the baby arrives?  What kind of sharing would help you avoid possible feelings of resentment?  In looking towards raising children, what level of household responsibility do you suggest allocating to them?

·         As intimate partners who are sharing a home and a child together, how do you feel about one of us staying at home, temporarily or permanently, to take care of our child?  Conversely, how do you view child care?

·         Although we have been together for a while and have shared a physical/sexual relationship, we have had to adjust that part of our relationship to accommodate the changes associated with our pregnancy.  During the postpartum period, breastfeeding, and early parenthood, there can be occurrences which have to do with additional hormonal changes, energy levels, and/or emotional shifts.  Based upon this reality, how can we work together to keep our lines of communication open and move forward with respect and consideration for each other?

Dr. Gottman’s research supports the long-term value of asking questions of the people we are in relationship with, especially our significant others.  The positive impact, he found, in terms of sustaining healthy and enduring relationships, family and otherwise, is undeniable.  So often, it seems that we have much on our minds but simply may not know the best way to broach the subject.  Additionally, people’s schedules make it difficult to prioritize touching base with each other on a daily basis.  Asking questions of one another helps bring such thoughts and feelings to the table for relationship building discussion.  Over time, such questions adjust to accommodate changes in family dynamics, education, employment, rites of passage (like the childbearing year), and the aging process.  As we traverse the path of emotional intimacy, the answers we receive to our questions, according to Gottman, serve to naturally develop our own “love maps”.  Such “maps”, then, Gottman encourages us to use in order to minimize the emotional upheaval that often results from major life events such as bringing a new child into a household, perhaps one of the greatest threats to stability in intimate relationships (along with job loss, etc.).  Gottman also suggests that when we have developed good habits of regular asking and listening, we are in a much better place to experience resilience in the face of such relationship challenges.      

As we get to know each other better, it becomes easier to ask questions when we are interested and/or unsure about various goings on in both our micro- and macro- relationships.  We become better at avoiding what can become habitual assuming.  Also, we can more readily offer the kind of support to each other that we desire at various times of our lives.   Lastly, the rewards that come from committing to asking questions of each other will, over time, far outweigh any potential negative fallout from such a genuine human activity. 

Self and Other Advocacy

By now, the pregnant woman and the individuals she might share living space with and/or who plan on assisting her during labor and birth have conversed about how they might support the  most personally meaningful, safe, and satisfying experience possible.  Knowing the personal preferences of the birthing woman, then, informs the kind of support and advocacy we will provide during this challenging, but strength building, life event, as well as the support and advocacy her health care providers will offer, as well.  Such details may be delineated, pre-birth, in a “birth plan”, which might list such preferences as availability of a hot tub for labor, use of a doula during all stages of labor, having a special family member cut the umbilical cord, and/or immediate breastfeeding with a non-emergent delivery.  Such intimate support and advocacy are ever crucial during labor, birth, and postpartum, but will also prove daily necessary in developing family identity, raising a family, and maintaining the healthiest relationships.        

Education

Just as in raising a family, education will help us be in a better position to provide support and advocacy to a woman in labor.  Through the assistance of books on the topic, childbirth and breastfeeding education classes, and even pregnancy exercise classes, we will feel more confident in our abilities to ask meaningful questions and use the resulting answers to give the type of support that is desired. 

Support

In accompanying a woman across the journey of her pregnancy, we are gifted with the opportunities to affect positive relationships through the practice of being present, acting as a witness, and being a validator (a communication skill which utilizes reflective listening and demonstrates empathy) to and of the physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual changes which are transpiring for the woman you care for.  Knowing how to support people we are in relationship with isn’t always a straightforward process and the “gameplan” one might seek to use is always in development, under construction, and demands rather constant attention and upkeep.  Nonetheless, learning to think on our feet, coexist with transparency, communicate with authenticity, listen reflectively, and treat each other with compassion and empathy, will take us far in moving towards successful, happy, and satisfying outcomes related to pregnancy, raising families, and living in general. 

To recap, the many ways we learn to support pregnant and birthing women, along with new mothers, are really no different than the basic and humane types of support it behooves all of us to learn to afford ourselves and each other, in an effort to grow and deepen emotional intimacy.  Understanding the value and real health-sustaining power of growing emotional connection between people will only serve to enhance individual and collective self-esteem, increased happiness, and greater emotional resilience.  As we become more adept at asking and answering, so do we become more able to grow not only family cohesion, but community cohesion, too.

Enjoy the close of the childbearing year, the start of parenthood, and the rest of your life journey!

References: 

Brittle, Zach, LMHC, March 11, 2015.  Build Love Maps:  Dr. Gottman’s term for getting to know your partner’s world is called Build Love Maps. Retrieved March 11, 2016 from

https://www.gottman.com/blog/build-love-maps.

Gottman, John and Nan Silver (1999).  The Seven Principles For Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide From the Country’s Foremost Relationship Expert. Three Rivers Press, New York.

Gottman Institute, The.  (n.d.)  Retrieved March 12, 2016 from http://www.gottman.com.