(PS3-A13) The Maternal Body Beliefs Scale: Psychometric Properties and Links with Perinatal Depression

Research indicates that up to 20% of women may experience postpartum depression. One modifiable risk factor for perinatal distress is the endorsement of biased or perfectionistic attitudes about motherhood (e.g., Leach et al., 2017; Sockol et al., 2015). Previous studies however have been limited by a focus on attitudes about maternal competence and role idealization. Although these are important dysfunctional attitudes, a host of essentialist beliefs about the maternal body are missing from current scales. These include judgements about what constitutes “natural” and controllable maternity, such as idealistic attitudes about conception, delivery, breastfeeding, and the perinatal body. Validating a comprehensive scale of internalized pressures with which new and expectant mothers struggle will help identify those at risk for perinatal depression.

We created the Maternal Body Beliefs Scale (MBBS) for use on its own or to complement existing attitudes about motherhood scales, such as the Pregnancy Related Beliefs Questionnaire-8 (PRBQ8; Leach et al., 2017) and the Attitudes towards Motherhood Scale (AToM; Sockol et al., 2015). The aims of the current study were to examine the psychometric properties of the MBBS and to establish the utility of the revised MBBS in predicting perinatal depression.

One hundred and thirty-one perinatal (110 pregnant and 21 postpartum) women, age 20-35 years, completed questionnaires online. Exploratory factor analyses with oblique rotation yielded a three-factor solution as the best fit for the data, accounting for 52% of the variance. Factor loadings ranged from .48 to .87. Global fit indices indicated reasonable fit, RMSEA = .08, RMSR = .05, TLI =.89. Three factors extracted from the MBBS included: 1) judgments about the maternal body (e.g., “If I can’t breastfeed my baby, I am not a good enough mother”), 2) beliefs about natural maternity (e.g., “Fertility is a sign of maternal strength”), and 3) beliefs about maternal body control (e.g., “It is important to look lean or fit even when I am pregnant”). The total MBBS showed high internal consistency (α = .91) and the three subscales demonstrated good reliability: Maternal Body Judgments (α = .87), Natural Maternity (α = .88), Maternal Body Control (α = .73). Concurrent validity of the MBBS was also good as the total and its subscales were significantly correlated with the PRBQ8 (rs = .44-.64) and the AToM (rs = .51-.72). Regression analyses using the total MBBS revealed that after controlling for perinatal status, income, and past emotional issues, the MBBS predicted perinatal depression over and above the AToM (β = .35, p < .01), but not the PRBQ8. Further analysis using the three MBBS subscales and the PRBQ revealed that the MBBS’s Maternal Body Control subscale, but not the other subscales, significantly predicted perinatal depression beyond the covariates and the PRBQ8 (β = .18, p < .05).
              Results demonstrate the psychometric strength of the MBBS and suggest it may add to the prediction of perinatal depression beyond existing maternal belief scales. If perfectionistic maternal body beliefs remain a significant risk factor in future research, addressing such attitudes during pregnancy could be an important component of prevention programs for postpartum depression.