Abstract
Pregnancy represents a critical time during which women are increasingly susceptible to challenges that can shape maternal health postpartum. Given the increasing number of women who are working through the duration of their pregnancies, in this study, we examine the extent to which both maternal psychological and physical health are influenced by social support received at work during pregnancy. Specifically, we examine 118 pregnant employees’ perceptions of coworker support, supervisor support, and stress over the course of 15 working days. We then link prenatal stress levels with postpartum maternal health outcomes following women’s return to work. At the within-person level, coworker support predicted next-day decreases in stress during pregnancy; however, stress did not predict next-day change in coworker support. There was no relationship between supervisor support and next-day change in stress during pregnancy or vice versa. At the between-person level, an interactive effect between coworker support and supervisor support emerged in predicting prenatal stress, such that women who benefitted from supportive coworkers and supportive supervisors during pregnancy reported the lowest levels of prenatal stress which were, in turn, associated with lower incidence of postpartum depression and quicker recovery times from birth-related injuries. Significant indirect effects suggested that when perceptions of supervisor support were higher (but not lower), coworker support during pregnancy predicted lower incidence of postpartum depression and quicker recovery times through reduced prenatal stress. Taken together, our findings provide novel insight into how specific aspects of the workplace environment may interact to shape maternal psychological and physical health during pregnancy and postpartum.
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Notes
Extant evidence suggests typical healing times for each type of injury are comparable (Wick, 2018). According to the Mayo Clinic Guide to a Healthy Pregnancy, women who are recovering from a cesarean section should avoid driving for 1-2 weeks, are usually able to resume normal activities at home within 3-4 weeks, and are recommended to avoid sex for 4-6 weeks post-surgery. Similarly, women who received stitches due to a perineal tear during delivery typically experience discomfort for 1-2 weeks post-delivery with the tissue taking about 6 weeks to regain its natural strength.
We were unable to consider both sources of support and their relations with stress simultaneously in the same within-person (BLCS) model. This is because such an approach requires the estimation of a number of paths so high that convergence cannot be achieved. Specifically, autoregressive effects are modeled by estimating the paths between support1, support2, support3 all the way up to support15. The same paths are then estimated for stress1, stress 2, stress3, all the way up to stress15. Next, latent change scores (i.e., difference scores) are modeled at each point in time (excluding time 1) for each variable as measured by the change in that variable relative to the previous time point beyond autoregressive effects. For example, the difference between support at time 1 and support at time 2 represents the latent change score for support at time 2. The proportional change parameters are then estimated by regressing the latent change score for support at time 2 onto the true score for support at time 1, regressing the latent change score for support at time 3 onto the true score for support at time 2, and so on. All of these paths are then estimated for the other variable of interest, stress. Finally, the coupling parameters are estimated by specifying a path from the true score for support at time 1 to the latent change score for stress at time 2, and vice versa by specifying a path from the true score for stress at time 1 to the latent change score for support at time 2, and so on up to time 15. Thus, adding a third variable (i.e., the other source of support) and all of the required associated parameters (autoregressive, proportional change, and coupling parameters) overwhelms the model and precludes convergence.
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Acknowledgements
We would like to thank two anonymous reviewers for their helpful and developmental guidance throughout the review process. We would also like to thank Dr. Allison Gabriel for providing a friendly review of our manuscript.
Funding
This research was supported by funding from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM Foundation Dissertation Grant), the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP Graduate Student Scholarship), the American Psychological Foundation (Sandra Schwartz Tangri Memorial Award for Graduate Student Research), the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (Grants-In-Aid Award), and the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (Kathryn Brooks Scholarship).
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Appendix. Data transparency information
Appendix. Data transparency information
The data reported in this manuscript were collected as part of a larger data collection, and findings have been published in one other manuscript (MS1). MS1 (published) focuses on event-level measures including anticipated discrimination; revealing, concealing, and signaling pregnancy; experienced discrimination, anxiety, and depression. The variables of focus in MS1 were only assessed when participants experienced a particular event of interest during the 15-day data collection and therefore only pertain to a subsample of participants. MS2 (the current manuscript) focuses on perceived coworker support, perceived supervisor support, stress, postpartum depression, and postpartum recovery time from birth-related injury. Perceived coworker support, perceived supervisor support, and stress were also collected during the 15-day data collection but pertain to the full sample of participants because they were collected on a pre-determined schedule (i.e., at the beginning of each workday). Variables 1–10 were collected during wave 1 of data collection and variables 11 and 12 (the postpartum measures) were collected approximately 2 years later during wave 2. Thus, there is some degree of overlap in the samples of MS1 and MS2 (MS1 is a subsample of MS2); however, there is no overlap in the variables of focus or the relationships examined between MS1 and MS2.
Variables in the complete dataset | Proportion of full sample of participants | Time of data collection | MS 1 (STATUS=pub) | MS 2 (STATUS=current) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
1. Anticipated discrimination | Subsample N = 72 | Wave 1 (event-level) | X | |
2. Revealing pregnancy | Subsample N = 72 | Wave 1 (event-level) | X | |
3. Concealing pregnancy | Subsample N = 72 | Wave 1 (event-level) | X | |
4. Signaling pregnancy | Subsample N = 72 | Wave 1 (event-level) | X | |
5. Experienced discrimination | Subsample N = 72 | Wave 1 (event-level) | X | |
6. Anxiety | Subsample N = 72 | Wave 1 (event-level) | X | |
7. Depression | Subsample N = 72 | Wave 1 (event-level) | X | |
8. Perceived coworker support | Full sample N = 118 n = 1594 | Wave 1 (daily baseline) | X | |
9. Perceived supervisor support | Full sample N = 118 n = 1594 | Wave 1 (daily baseline) | X | |
10. Stress | Full sample N = 118 n = 1594 | Wave 1 (daily baseline) | X | |
11. Postpartum depression | Subsample N = 87 | Wave 2 (one-time follow-up) | X | |
12. Postpartum recovery time | Subsample N = 69 | Wave 2 (one-time follow-up) | X |
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Jones, K.P., Brady, J.M., Lindsey, A.P. et al. The Interactive Effects of Coworker and Supervisor Support on Prenatal Stress and Postpartum Health: a Time-Lagged Investigation. J Bus Psychol 37, 469–490 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-021-09756-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10869-021-09756-1