In her master's thesis, the author explores the connection of birth expectations and lived birth experience, the relationship between the two and connection to mother and newborn first contact. In theoretical section of this thesis the author presents main presumptions of relationship between expectations, formation of expectations and experience of childbirth. The focus is on feelings of agency, support, trust and confidence in self and relationship with health workers. It continues to set out important factors of birth environment and care during birth. The author describes importance of mother adult attachment style and its relationship to postpartum depression. In the empirical section of this thesis, qualitative method with phenomenological approach was implied. The specific phenomenon of childbirth experience and created expectations was focal point of this research. For the research of this phenomenon, the author conducted ten phenomenological interviews with prim parous women, from their birth experience passed at least six months and not more than two years. The average age of participants was 29,8 years and they all lived in central Slovenia. Eight women had vaginal birth and two had a caesarian section. Based on conducted interviews of first time mothers the author found correlation between feelings of agency during childbirth and positive evaluation of childbirth experience and correlation between birth experience and feeling of support from others humans present at birth. Feeling of support was especially emphasized in relationship with healthcare workers in which the support was shown as the woman was recognized as an individual person and their wishes were respected. The feeling of agency during childbirth was correlated with relationship and interactions with healthcare workers, which is then correlated to ability to make decisions about medical interventions and other factors of birth environment. Furthermore there was shown correlation between birth expectations and birth experience, where discrepancy between the two is connected to more negative assessment of birth experience, whereas concordance of expectations and experience is connected to more positive birth assessment. The main aspects of this research were; the feeling of agency and possibility of control over childbirth and decisions regarding the process. Last but not least the factor connected to first contact between mother and newborn and the beginning of forming an attachment was in part also the discrepancy or concordance of birth expectations and birth experience.
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