Prenatal profiles of social support and postpartum stress in mothers in home visiting

Stress in the perinatal period has a deleterious effect on parenting and maternal well-being. Home visiting programs help mothers of young children reduce stress and improve coping skills. Social support has been found to be an important contributor to stress reduction in mothers. Less is known about how specific aspects of social support relate to perinatal stress in the context of home visiting. This study examined social support measured prenatally and its association with parenting stress at 6 months postpartum. Latent profile analysis was used to determine different subtypes of social support, and these were used to predict later parenting stress. A total of 1739 mothers enrolled in a home visiting program were included in the analytic dataset for this study. Individuals were low-income (95 %), 57 % white, and 40 % African American/Black. Results found four distinct profiles of social support: Low Appraisal Support (5.6 %, n = 97), High Support (74.5 %, n = 1295), Low Tangible/Belonging Support (5.87 %, n = 102), and Moderate Support (14 %, n = 245). The Low Appraisal Support and Low Tangible/Belonging Support groups were distinguished by an item reflecting having someone to turn to for personal problems. Mothers in each of the lower support groups had higher levels of later parenting stress. Findings suggest that home visiting programs might be more effective in addressing social support in mothers by matching interventions to specific needs.