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.