The correlation between social support and attitudes of teenage girls towards their pregnancy and childbirth

Introduction: Social support is a type of interaction that occurs between individuals, and its most important sources are people in the immediate environment. Pregnancy and giving birth represent a special time in the life of a teenage girl. The time arouses a lot of emotions, both positive and negative, often accompanied by a lack of support from those closest to her. Aim of the research: To determine the correlation between the social support received and the types of attitudes towards pregnancy and childbirth presented by adolescent mothers. Material and methods: A cross-sectional study with the use of the Social Support Scale and a questionnaire to measure women's attitudes towards pregnancy and childbirth was carried out. The study included 308 adolescent puerperae aged between 13 and 19 years. Results: The study showed that the overall level of social support was not significantly associated with the type of attitude towards both pregnancy (p = 0.28) and childbirth (p = 0.22). However, a significant correlation was found between the attitude towards both pregnancy and childbirth and the support received from teachers (p = 0.004; p = 0.02, respectively). Correlation that was close to significant was found between the attitude towards pregnancy and the support received from strangers (p = 0.05) and young members of the local community (p = 0.09). Conclusions: Future research should establish the correlation between the attitudes and the received social support for groups of different nature, including different cultures.