'I just want to be normal' - A qualitative study of pregnant women's blogs who present themselves as overweight or obese

• Objective: to describe what pregnant women who present themselves as overweight or obese write about their pregnancy in their blogs.Setting: Swedish private blogs.Design: a qualitative study, using 13 Internet blogs as the source of data. Google was used to find the blogs. The blog content was analysed using thematic analysis.Findings: three main themes were identified: Pregnancy as an excuse, Perspectives on the pregnant body and Becoming a mother. The pregnancy was used as an excuse for breaking the norms, ‘I am normal because I am pregnant’, and gaining weight, ‘I normalise my weight and weight gain’. The women expressed different perspectives of their body through ‘ For me it is important to look pregnant’, ‘How others seem to see me’ and ‘Labelled a risk pregnancy at the antenatal care’. The transition to motherhood was described in ‘How the pregnancy affects my life’, and there was disappointment when the women experienced ‘Unmet expectations’.Key conclusion: the women described themselves as normal behind the obesity and saw their pregnancy as an excuse for their body size and behaviour. They did not identify themselves as a risk group and they did not recognise the midwife's support during the pregnancy.Implication for practice: midwives may have to address overweight and obese pregnant women's attitude towards weight and weight gain in weight gain interventions.

Subject headings

MEDICIN OCH HÄLSOVETENSKAP  -- Hälsovetenskap -- Omvårdnad (hsv//swe)

MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES  -- Health Sciences -- Nursing (hsv//eng)

Keyword

Pregnancy

Overweight

Obesity

Blogs

Thematic analysis

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

art (subject category)