The proposed prospective panel study has been designed to determine the relationship and relative importance of selected health, individual psychosocial, family, and demographic variables to functional status during pregnancy and the postpartum. Functional status during pregnancy is defined as the extent to which the pregnant women continues her usual self- care, household, social and community, and occupational activities. Postpartal functional status is defined as the woman's readiness to assume infant care responsibilities and resume usual self-care, household, social and community, and occupational activities. A sample of 291 low-risk English-speaking married women will be recruited from obstetrical and nurse-midwifery practices for an anticipated final sample size of 210 subjects. Subjects will be followed longitudinally from the end of the first trimester of pregnancy until 6 months after delivery. Data will be collected at the end of each trimester of pregnancy and at 3 weeks, 6 weeks, 3 months, and 6 months postpartum, using questionnaire, and semi- structured interview schedules. Data will be analyzed using descriptive statistics, repeated measures analysis of variance, and multiple regression for quantitative data and content analysis for qualitative data. Data obtained from this study will provide currently unavailable normative data on variables related to within-subject changes in functional status during pregnancy and the postpartum for the development of interventions that may facilitate optimum functional status during pregnancy and the postpartum and for the development of social policy on maternity leave.
