The Lived Experience of Perinatal Anxiety Among Women in Ghaemshahr, Iran: Navigating Fluctuating Socioeconomic Conditions

Pregnancy in the context of Iran’s volatile socioeconomic landscape—characterized by chronic inflation, job instability, and diminishing family support—has evolved into a complex and highly anxious experience. This hermeneutic phenomenological qualitative study, conducted in Ghaemshahr during ۲۰۲۴–۲۰۲۵, aimed to describe and interpret the lived experience of pregnancy-related anxiety among pregnant women residing in this setting. Twenty-two pregnant women were selected through purposive sampling to ensure maximum variation, and data were collected via semi-structured in-depth interviews, field notes, and personal documents. The data were analyzed using the seven-stage hermeneutic phenomenological method, with rigorous adherence to criteria for credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability. The lived experience of pregnancy anxiety coalesced into four core themes: ۱) the fear of family economic collapse with the child's birth, ۲) solitude against inflation and the reduction of familial support, ۳) the conflict between the ideal image of motherhood and economic reality, and ۴) life in a state of suspension with dual coping strategies. The overarching structure of the phenomenon was an "ontological state of suspension," transforming pregnancy into a "high-risk, high-cost project." For women in Ghaemshahr, pregnancy anxiety extends beyond a mere psychological symptom, manifesting as an existential-economic crisis that critically impacts the entire project of motherhood and familial future-planning. The findings underscore the urgent need for locally tailored, combined psychological, economic, and supportive policy interventions.

کلیدواژه ها:

Lived Experience ، Pregnancy Anxiety ، Hermeneutic Phenomenology ، Changing Economic Conditions ، Chronic Inflation