The aim of the thesis is to find out how the experience of pregnancy is related to the postpartum period, what motherhood means to the users of the maternity home, how they coped with their new role, what challenges they faced and what formal and informal support they received. In the theoretical introduction, I first introduce the chapter on pregnancy and motherhood, which are unique and unforgettable periods in a woman's life. Then I focus on the mental distress women can experience after childbirth. This is followed by a chapter on women's rights and support networks. I chose to present women's rights because I believe it is extremely important that women are informed about the rights available to them in the postpartum period. In the last part, I make an overview focusing on the support networks that women can contact in the pre- and postpartum period. The empirical part presents the stories of five maternity home users who talked about their experience of the postpartum period. They faced a variety of feelings and emotions after giving birth, each experienced motherhood in her own way and perceived it as a time of diverse challenges. Maternity home users are still quite burdened by the image of the ideal mother perpetuated by the myth of motherhood. In the postpartum period, significant others and support networks also play an important role, making a significant contribution to delaying the development of postpartum distress.
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