Body image during pregnancy: an evaluation of the suitability of the body attitudes questionnaire

Background:&nbsp;Available data suggest that body dissatisfaction is common during pregnancy and may even be a&nbsp;precursor to post-natal depression. However, in order to accurately identify at-risk women, it is essential to first&nbsp;establish that body image measures function appropriately in pregnant populations. Our study examines the&nbsp;suitability of the Body Attitudes Questionnaire (BAQ) for measuring body dissatisfaction among pregnant women&nbsp;by comparing the psychometric functioning of the BAQ: (1) across key phases of pregnancy, and (2) between&nbsp;pregnant and non-pregnant women.&nbsp;Methods: A total of 176 pregnant women from Melbourne, Victoria filled out a questionnaire battery containing&nbsp;demographic questions and the Body Attitudes Questionnaire at 16, 24, and 32 weeks during pregnancy. A&nbsp;comparison group of 148 non-pregnant women also completed the questionnaire battery at Time 1. Evaluations of&nbsp;the psychometric properties of the BAQ consisted of a series of measurement invariance tests conducted within a&nbsp;structural equation modelling framework.Results: Although the internal consistency and factorial validity of the subscales of the BAQ were established across&nbsp;time and also in comparisons between pregnant and non- pregnant women, measurement invariance tests showed&nbsp;non-invariant item intercepts across pregnancy and also in comparison with the non-pregnant subgroup.&nbsp;Inspection of modification indices revealed a complex, non-uniform pattern of differences in item intercepts across&nbsp;groups.Conclusions: Collectively, our findings suggest that comparisons of body dissatisfaction between pregnant and&nbsp;non-pregnant women (at least based on the BAQ) are likely to be conflated by differential measurement biases that serve to undermine attempts to accurately assess level of body dissatisfaction. Researchers should be cautious in&nbsp;assessments of body dissatisfaction among pregnant women until a suitable measure has been established for use&nbsp;in this population. Given the fact that body dissatisfaction is often associated with maladaptive behaviours, such as&nbsp;unhealthy eating and extreme weight loss behaviours, and with ante-and post-natal depression, that have serious&nbsp;negative implications for women&rsquo;s health and well-being, and potentially also for the unborn foetus during&nbsp;pregnancy, developing a suitable body image screening tool, specific to the perinatal period is clearly warranted.</div

Factors influencing the planning undertaken by women during pregnancy for their return to work after maternity leave

The planning women (N = 199) do during pregnancy for their return to work post birth and the factors that influence employment planning during late pregnancy were investigated in this study. The findings revealed three components of planning: Planning for Childcare, Planning with Partner, and Planning with Employer. Several factors emerged as consistent cross-sectional predictors of these components (work satisfaction, hours worked before commencing maternity leave, anticipated weeks of maternity leave and anticipated hours per week on the return to work). Anticipated support from family and friends, and from the workplace also predicted Planning with Partner and Planning with Employer, respectively. The theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.<br /