Attitudes of pregnant Ukrainian women towards their child in the ІІІ trimester of pregnancy during wartime in Ukraine in relation to women’s reproductive health (Podillia region)
Authors: Cherepiekhina O.A. , Turubarova A.V. , Gorshkova G.V. , Bulanov V.A. 
Published: December 2023

Pregnancy for a woman is a period of transformation of her personal, professional, sexual, gender, bodily and other identities. The state of bearing a child is a crisis stage in the formation of a woman’s personality. In wartime this crisis may intensify, which requires scientifically based research in the context of women’s reproductive health and the demographic policy of Ukraine.The objective: to study the image of the future child in women in the III trimester of pregnancy during martial law in relation to women’s reproductive health.Materials and methods. 180 pregnant women, most of whom were aged 24–29 years and were officially married and had no children, were examined using a questionnaire, a color test of attitudes by O. M. Atkind and the method of semantic differential by C. Osgood. 90 women who were registered in Vinnytsia and Vinnytsia region at the time of the survey took part in the study, and 90 women – in city of Zaporizhzhia and Zaporizhzhia region.To determine the relationship between women’s perceptions of themselves, the child, and the husband, Pearson’s r correlation coefficients were calculated in the statistical program IBM SPSS Statistics - Early Access, and the Kruskel–Wallis H test was also used.Results. Research conducted among women living in Vinnytsia and Vinnytsia region established that the attitude of pregnant women to themselves affects the attitude to the child (p=0.772), to the pregnancy (p=0.162), to the family (p=0.599) and to the child’s father (p=0.923). A statistically significant relationship was found between the pregnant woman’s attitude towards herself and her children (p=0.001), as well as between her attitude towards herself and motherhood (p=0.022). That is, the type of emotional attitude of a pregnant woman to herself affects the type of attitude towards children and motherhood. By having a positive attitude towards themselves, women have a positive attitude towards children and towards motherhood.Also, with the help of the Kruskel–Wallis H test, the trend of the influence of the attitude towards the child depending on the age of the woman was revealed (XI=7.424; df=3; p=0.060), the trend of the influence of the level of education of the pregnant woman on her perception of pregnancy (XI 10.373; df=5; p =0.065). The correlation between the categories “I am a child” is r=0.676; between “father-child” categories - r=0.528; between “I am the father of the child” - r=0.439. At df=30, these indicators are significant.It should be noted that among the three indicators, the highest level of significance was found between the categories “I am a child”. A comparative analysis of the obtained data between groups of women from the Vinnytsia and Zaporizhzhia regions as research participants from regions of Ukraine with different levels of security, that is, with active hostilities and relatively calm regions, shows specific differences, the description of which is given in the text of this article.Conclusions. The results obtained in this study among women from two regions of Ukraine (Vinnytsia and the region and Zaporizhzhia and the region) prove that the identified peculiarities of the attitude of women in the III trimester of pregnancy can be determined by their place of residence during wartime. The importance of forming a positive attitude towards the child in pregnant women in the III trimester of pregnancy in wartime conditions and the need to develop appropriate programs of medical, social and psychological assistance have been proven.The obtained results confirm the need to provide complex medical and psychological assistance to pregnant women in wartime in order to strengthen women’s reproductive health. This assistance should be targeted according to the region of residence of the women, which, as the results of the study showed, determines the characteristics of the attitude of pregnant women to the child (a sample of pregnant women from Vinnytsia and Zaporizhzhia regions, respectively).At the individual level the help should be directed at a woman’s values, motivations and beliefs about the value of her own life and the life of her future child. Emotional support should include encouraging pregnant women to openly express their feelings through verbal and non-verbal means, teaching them to accept help from others, and self-help to ensure emotional well-being. The psychophysical level of care involves teaching expectant mothers to regulate their functional and mental state using such methods as autogenic training, art therapy, and body-oriented therapy in stressful situations.