Grossesse, désir d'enfant et parentalité dans les maternités célibataires à risque

Abstract

Single mothers currently represent about one forth of the single-parent families in France. Among them, the young single mothers who are living in special centers for single mothers constitute a high-risk population. In most cases, these are women suffering from affective deprivation and social isolation who find themselves, during the pregnancy or just before the child's birth in situations of conflict, rejection or separation from their partner and their family. In spite of these risks, a detailed review of the literature has allowed us to observe that very few studies have been carried out with this population. In the present article, we propose to study the access to parenting for these young mothers (N = 28) by centering ourselves particularly on the way the pregnancy was experienced and the women's desire for a child. In this work, we carried out clinical interviews during the third trimester of pregnancy and also worked with a comparative group made up of mothers living with a partner. (N = 20) The results, which are illustrated with excerpts of the interviews, show that the pregnancies of these young, single mothers seem to cristallize a desperate attempt to break off with the past, all the while leading them into a precarious social situation and severe psychological distress. The majority of the women interviewed present important difficulties in elaborating the meaning and the physical experience of their pregnancy. The desire for a child and their imaginary infant often seem to be associated with the notions of salvation, of repair and healing of their narcissistic wounds as well as the repair of their parental imagos which are percieved as faulty. This data confirms their status as a population at high risk for psychological troubles and it calls attention to the usefulness of setting up psychological treatment well before the baby is born.