Escala de Creencias sobre la Maternidad: Construcción y Validación en Mujeres Mexicanas

Abstract

Motherhood has been transformed throughout history. Nowadays, it is also nuanced by gender equity and both technological and scientific progress, hence the interest in establishing and determining the psychometric characteristics of a Maternity Beliefs Scale. The scale was applied to 545 Mexican women with different maternal statuses (perinatal loss, infertility, high-risk pregnancy, mothers with preschool children and university students without children). The scale is constituted by 13 test items, arranged in two subscales: Motherhood as a sense of life and motherhood as a social duty. Both indexes for reliability and validity were satisfactory. Discussion includes their usefulness in research and clinical practice, and the results are analyzed in terms of the conceptualization of motherhood as a complementary choice for the life of a woman and not as a duty.