The Relationship between Fatigue in Mothers and the Age of Their Less-Than-24-Month-Old Newborns

Abstract

The birth of a child marks the beginning of a new developmental period for the parents. These changes have positive but also negative aspects, such as the increase in fatigue experienced by mothers during this period of time, which can be very limiting and lead them to postpone other life or work goals. However, despite the widespread nature of this problem, there is a lack of information about the duration of this fatigue, with estimates ranging from three months to six years; this prevents mothers from planning this period of their lives adequately. The current study evaluated fatigue in a Spanish sample of 67 women with infants less than two years old and drew a comparison with another sample of 46 women with similar characteristics who were not caring for an infant at that time in order to determine the differences between them and how fatigue in the former group evolves depending on the age of the infant. The results show that fatigue is effectively maintained until at least two years after the birth of the infant.