Awareness-Based Parentıng And Bırth Preparatıon Educatıon Gıven To Couples

One of the behavioral intervention programs used to adapt to the changes experienced during pregnancy, birth and postpartum and to maintain a healthy transition to parenthood is Conscious Awareness-Based Practices .Conscious awareness is an experiential process in which attention is directed purposefully and consciously to what is happening in the body and mind at that moment, and the content that emerges as a result of these observations is accepted with curiosity, understanding and compassion, without being judged, analyzed, or reacted.Due to their stated effects, these interventions help parents improve their awareness and acceptance of thoughts, feelings, and body sensations, reduce reactivity, avoid disturbing experiences, accept the roles and responsibilities of parenting in a non-judgmental manner, learn to use mechanisms to cope with the stress of parenting, and help themselves and the child. It is important to enable people to show compassion .

Awareness-based training can be integrated into birth preparation training as it is a method that can be used to improve birth parameters.

The word parent means mother and father according to the Turkish Language Association. It is also described as a nuclear family and represents a child's mother and father. The meaning of being a parent is defined as constantly providing care, needs and support for a child for development and survival .

Becoming a parent is one of the developmental transition periods that adds new roles and responsibilities to an individual's life and involves radical changes .This process of change is called the transition period to parenthood .Although there are many different opinions about when the transition to parenthood begins and ends, the most widely accepted view is that it begins with pregnancy in individuals who become mothers/fathers for the first time and ends within a few months after birth. The transition period is followed by the parenthood period .

The transition to parenthood also brings about parent-infant bonding. The term attachment refers to the ability to establish and maintain an emotionally positive, reciprocal, helpful relationship between infants and parents. If the relationship is properly established, adults adapt themselves to their babies, and babies give adults clues about their needs. This relationship, which develops in the early period, has an important place in the physical, psychological and intellectual development of the child and continues its effectiveness throughout life. The family-infant attachment process develops in three periods: pregnancy, birth and postpartum .During pregnancy, it is important for parents to feel and caress their baby physically, to believe that their baby is establishing a relationship with them, to talk to the fetus, to say its name, to think about their baby, to feel positive emotions about their baby, and to imagine their baby's future situation for the development of attachment.. It is stated that the attachment that begins during pregnancy gradually increases as pregnancy progresses and becomes stronger after the baby is born.In a study examining attachment, it was determined that there was a strong and significant relationship between prenatal attachment and postpartum attachment .Since the aware emotions created by attachment are motivating during pregnancy and facilitate adaptation to the parenting role, they also positively affect the parent-infant adaptation process.

Pregnancy is seen as an important preparation period for parenthood in which physiological, psychological, social and emotional changes occur and requires adaptation to these changes. Especially individuals who will be mothers and fathers for the first time may experience a feeling of uncertainty regarding the process of pregnancy, birth and the changes experienced in the postpartum period. Parents want the pregnancy process to be smooth and the birth to be painless and with high satisfaction.However, in this process, they experience complex emotions such as anxiety, fear and excitement together. Fears generally arise from episiotomy during vaginal birth, the thought that there may be a tear in the perineum, the pain that will be felt during all these processes, and the responsibilities of baby care that come with being a parent .

There are many training programs on attitudes and behaviors towards parents in order to facilitate individuals' adaptation to these changes and to better manage their transition to parenthood. These programs have a positive effect on the individual well-being of parents, their ability to acquire parenting skills in a healthy way, and the healthy development of the child. By supporting the uncertainty in this transition process with educational programs in the prenatal period, family-infant bonding and adaptation can be achieved, and pregnancy, birth and the postpartum process can be continued in a healthy way .

One of the behavioral intervention programs used to adapt to the changes experienced during pregnancy, birth and postpartum and to maintain a healthy transition to parenthood is Conscious Awareness-Based Practices. Conscious awareness is an experiential process in which attention is directed purposefully and consciously to what is happening in the body and mind at that moment, and the content that emerges as a result of these observations is accepted with curiosity, understanding and compassion, without being judged, analyzed, or reacted. It is a skill that allows us not to be passive towards everything that is happening right now, and it is associated with all our positive, negative and neutral experiences, reducing all levels of suffering and increasing our state of well-being . Due to their stated effects, these interventions help parents improve their awareness and acceptance of thoughts, feelings, and body sensations, reduce reactivity, avoid disturbing experiences, accept the roles and responsibilities of parenting in a non-judgmental manner, learn to use mechanisms to cope with the stress of parenting, and help themselves and the child. It is important to enable people to show compassion.

In a study conducted in Turkey, a conscious awareness-based approach was applied to women who were followed up in a clinic with a diagnosis of premature rupture of membranes, and its effect on their adaptation to motherhood in the prenatal period, maternal attachment levels, and adaptation to motherhood in the postpartum period was evaluated. It was determined that after the intervention, there was an increase in women's competence levels regarding pregnancy acceptance, birth preparation, maternal attachment and the maternal role . In a study that conducted a systematic review of mindfulness-based interventions during pregnancy, it was found that it was useful for overcoming undesirable situations such as anxiety, depression, fear of birth and perceived distress and increased psychological well-being. As a result of the study conducted to increase birth self-efficacy; Awareness and birth self-efficacy levels increased significantly. ) emphasized that mindfulness interventions implemented to improve maternal outcomes have positive effects on maternal well-being. They reported that this state of well-being not only psychologically but also physically regulates blood pressure and blood sugar, slows down heart rate, and improves fatigue and activity levels.

Awareness-based training can be integrated into birth preparation training as it is a method that can be used to improve birth parameters. When the literature is examined, although there are studies examining the effects of Awareness-Based Parenting and Birth Preparation Education on mothers in the perinatal period, studies in which fathers are included in the application and studies examining the relationship between adaptation and attachment and awareness are limited. It is stated that actively involving both parents in group-based parenting training is more effective in increasing the efficiency of the program stated that conscious awareness is an important feature of transition. The higher the individual's awareness of the new role he will assume at the end of the transition, the higher his level of competence and success in the role will be Therefore, Awareness-Based Parenting and Birth Preparation Training, applied during the transition to parenthood, is important as it will increase the quality of pregnancy, birth and postnatal care, as it will increase competence and adaptation to parenting roles, facilitate the birth process, and ensure maternal and paternal attachment. For all these reasons, this research was planned to investigate the effects of Awareness-Based Parenting and Birth Preparation Training given to couples on maternal-paternal attachment, birth parameters and postpartum adaptation. It is thought that the training that parents receive to be aware of their own body and birth process will make a positive contribution to pregnancy, birth and the postpartum process.