POSTPARTUM WORRIES: AN EXPLORATION OF TAIWANESE PRIMIPARAS WHO PARTICIPATE IN THE CHINESE RITUAL OF TSO-YUEH-TZU (DOING-THE-MONTH).
Contributors: University of California, San Francisco.
Published: 1993
Number of pages: 177
Subjects: Health Sciences, Nursing.; Health Sciences, Obstetrics and Gynecology.
Description: The traditional Chinese ritual of Tso-Yueh-Tzu is a 30-day period postpartum that is a culturally sanctioned time for the new mother to rest and recuperate at home. For many affluent Taiwanese women, the ritual can be followed in a professional health care setting that is called a Tso-Yueh-Tzu Center. Although the ritual does promote the physical recovery of woman in postpartum and protect her subsequent health, in its present form, it also does not necessarily help women to deal with their worries. Nor is current practices emotionally sensitive to women's needs to work through their worries. The ritual of Tso-Yueh-Tzu has been documented in terms of practices and philosophies, particularly implications from beliefs related to yin and yan, hot and cold. However, the worries of contemporary Taiwanese women who participate in Tso-Yueh-Tzu has not been studied.

The purpose of this study was to explore the worries among Taiwanese mothers who participated in the ritual in a Center setting. Focus group method, a qualitative research approach to gather information through group discussion, was used to permit members of the group expression of their perceptions on a defined area of interest in a comfortable and safe environment. Six focus groups were held with 3-4 primiparas in each group, for a total of 21 women. Each focus group session lasted approximately 2 hours, was audio-taped to permit verbatim transcriptions. The processes for qualitative content analysis included: generation of codes using key words or phrases, clustering of the categories, and synthesis of categories into themes.

Findings included four themes: searching process to integrate the "self" into the ritual of Tso-Yueh-Tzu, understanding that the newborn baby's care influences evaluation of the "self" as a "good mother", decision-making process that involved the "self" needs to arrange the best baby care amidst being a "career-woman", and reconciling the need for "self"-fulfillment with the demand to be a "family-mother". Although the women expressed their worries in different content, they all focused on the need for "the integration of the self" while they went through Tso-Yueh-Tzu.
Notes: Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 54-06, Section: B, page: 2996.

Thesis (D.N.S.)--UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN FRANCISCO, 1993.

School code: 0034.