An existential exploration of the experience of British-Iraqi mothers during the first 40 days of motherhood

Though there has been numerous literature over the past decades around the topic of ‘motherhood’, there remains little written about the experience for mothers from a bi-cultural background living in the UK. This research aimed to investigate the experiences of eleven British-Iraqi first-time mothers during the first 40 days of motherhood and to explore these experiences from the perspectives of the Four Worlds of Existence (Deurzen, 1997). All the women interviewed were married to and living with the father of their child and had the presence of family support. Ten main themes were uncovered within each of the Four World Dimensions, each with a few sub-themes. These themes were: the physical experience of becoming a mother, breastfeeding, the experience of support, the impact of culture, the importance of ‘mama’, emotional response, thrownness of motherhood, interwoven identities, religious and cultural beliefs and establishing values. The themes portray each mother’s unique experiences and they also found numerous common themes from the narratives of each of the eleven mothers’. Many of the themes were overlapping, particularly those between the Physical and Personal Dimensions, with numerous interconnections. The research findings highlighted a different and unique account of first-time motherhood for this specific cohort. The presence of the middle eastern/Arab culture within a new mother’s identity has been shown to impact the level of support she and her newborn receives.