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Abstract

Maternal anger has been overlooked as a postnatal mood disturbance. The empirical literature supports a strong relationship between sleep and mental health. Proportions of women experiencing anger and whether maternal-infant sleep problems are associated with anger as a postpartum mood disturbance are unknown. Social media was used to recruit Canadian mothers of infants between 6 and 12 months of age to complete an online survey about maternal-infant sleep after receiving ethical approval. The survey inquired about maternal-infant sleep quality, maternal fatigue, cognitions about infant sleep, support, anger, and depressive symptoms. A subset of women completing the online survey participated in telephone interviews, with the goal of generating a theory about anger after childbirth. Phone interviews were transcribed and data were analyzed using grounded theory methods. Of the 278 women who completed the survey, 70% perceived their infant’s sleep as problematic. Regarding mood, 31% had high levels of anger and 26% had depressive symptoms above the cut-off score. Robust regression analysis revealed that parity (b = 1.93, p < .001), depression (b = .50, p = .008), and anger about infant sleep (b = .46, p < .001), predicted maternal postpartum anger. An interaction term between anger about infant sleep and infant age also predicted maternal anger (b = 0.13, p