Pregnancy & Eating Disorder: A Qualitative Analysis

This report provides a qualitative analysis of the relationship between pregnancy and eating disorders. It explores the experiences, beliefs, and effects on individuals. The data was collected from online sources and covers topics such as the fear of relapse, body image issues, and positive effects on life. The report aims to educate and generate awareness about these issues.

Pregnancy & eating disorder

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Description of the chosen analytical process...............................................................................1
Analysis........................................................................................................................................2
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................8

INTRODUCTION
The report has been prepared by using the data from online websites very well mind. This
report helps in educating individuals about pregnancy and the eating disorder that are being faced
by the individuals. This report shows the qualitative analysis about the interpretation, perspective
and attitude of individuals toward the female pregnancy and the fear of people with eating
disorders. A principal of IPA is the implementation of a table which typically summarizes the
whole report. (Nguyen, 2017) Comprehensively the report addresses both the issues of
pregnancy and eating disorder and will provide a guidance for female and people with these
problems.(Micali, 2018)
Pregnancy is the time during which an offspring is developed inside a woman. Pregnancy
occurs due to sexual intercourse between a male and a female. A pregnancy may result into a
birth of a child or miscarriage. Childbirth generally takes around 9 months from the end of the
menstrual cycle. There are a variety of symptoms of pregnancy including missing periods,
vomiting, hunger and frequent urination. This can be confirmed through a pregnancy test which
will show that a woman is pregnant or not. During pregnancy a woman should avoid things like
alcohol, drugs, smoking as this may result in miscarriage.
Eating disorder means a mental disorder which occurs due to abnormal eating habits
which can affect the individual mentally and physically. These habits include eating frequently in
large amounts, eating very less because of the fear of getting fat. This causes anxiety disorder,
depression etc., these problems have a long term effect on the person. An important thing to keep
in mind is that obesity is not included in these eating disorders. The individual must see a doctor
for the treatment of any kind of eating disorder, as immediate treatment is very important or this
will have long termed affect of the persons' health.
MAIN BODY
Description of the chosen analytical process
The data was being collected from the website called verywellmind.com which intended
to educate the learner about the different kind of eating disorders and also about the pregnancy of
women and how these two are related. There are a variety of disorder that was being chosen by
the website and then it was explained below. The data shows the eating disorder among the
teenagers as well as the old people. The report has shown a variety of learning outcomes for the
people suffering from eating disorders. The site has shown the problem which were faced by
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these individual when they have the side effects from these eating disorders like depression and
nausea. There was no requirement of ethics approval as the data was available publicly on the
websites without any restrictions.
In this qualitative analysis there has been the interpretation, perspective and attitude for
the understanding of the individual. Just to make sure that the report is developed in a detailed
transparent manner there was the use of Interpretative Phenomenology Analysis (IPA). IPA
focuses on the unique way of interpretation of the data so that the analysis is done in a proper
manner. Basically IPA is an qualitative approach which means that to offer insight into how a
person in a given context makes sense of a phenomenon. These phenomenons are generally
related to the experience of an individual which may include major life event that changed his
life. The IPA is a combination of psychological, interpretative and idiographic components.
The pregnancy description is provided by the website Wikipedia. The information that
has been gained by the website was how a female get pregnant, the care that should be taken
while a female is pregnant and the details of childbirth.(dos Santos 2017)
This choice of analyzing the data is done so that rich data can be exported from these
websites, which will help in educating the individual and generate awareness about the problems
of pregnancy and the eating disorder being faced by the different individual all over the world.
The aim of the study was to research about the experiences and belief of the females during there
pregnancy and the persons who have recovered from eating disorders and what are the effects
and side effects they have to gone through to be treated and be healthy once again.
Analysis
Table 1: Table of themes extracted from the data
Main themes Sub themes Quotations
Negative
views/beliefs
about
Pregnant After
an Eating
Disorder
scariest time  “pregnancy was also the scariest time in my life.”- Tess
Jones, 31, Pittsburgh, PA
 “I know I’m fully recovered, but the chemical shifts in
my brain during this pregnancy could affect my
recovery.”-Melainie Rogers, 48, New York, NY
 “I wasn’t prepared for were the many unanticipated
experiences throughout my pregnancy journey that
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would trigger eating disorder thoughts and
behaviors.”-Unknown-1
Other
different
feeling
 “I did not think could be fixed”- Tess Jones, 31,
Pittsburgh, PA
 “|I definitely felt cheated from that intimate experience,”-
Melainie Rogers, 48, New York, NY
Different
kinds of
thoughts
caused by
Pregnant After
an Eating
Disorder
nervous  “I had been so nervous about gaining weight that it felt
like a victory at first. Losing weight, after all, had been
my addiction”- Tess Jones, 31, Pittsburgh, PA
 “Knowing my history, I knew I was at risk to develop
postpartum depression and worked closely with my
psychiatrist and therapist to have a plan in place”-
Melainie Rogers, 48, New York, NY
 “To be completely transparent, my eating disorder
behaviors haven't fully disappeared, though they've
lessened in frequency and severity”-Unknown 2
Confusion  “ I knew that sugar-free gum had five calories and the
carbonation in Diet Coke made me less hungry, but
gaining weight to be healthy for myself and my baby was
a completely foreign concept.”- Tess Jones, 31,
Pittsburgh, PA(Kolko, 2017)
 “I thought about myself and my body, often causing
me to second guess if I could really trust my changing
body during pregnancy. ”- Unknown-1
 “I feel pulled in two directions, one being the tyrannical
voice of my eating disorder, and the other being the
desire to keep my baby healthy.”-Unknown 2
learned  “I’ll be able to help her have a balanced view of food and
exercise, and send different messages to her than the ones
that I had sent to me by my own parents regarding food,
exercise, and the importance of being thin.”- Lauren Hill,
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28, Wilmington, NC
 “how to feed and honor my body with normalized
eating.”-Unknown 1
Feeling bad
or difficulty
in accepting
 “shame of my eating disorder lingered, especially when
people told me I “didn’t look pregnant” or that I would
have the “world’s tiniest baby.” Those comments made
me feel like I was a bad mother for still dealing with my
illness.”- Tess Jones, 31, Pittsburgh, PA
 “Seeing my postpartum body in the mirror is sometimes
difficult for me.”- Lauren Hill, 28, Wilmington, NC
 “ I prefer to avoid mirrors and my reflection in profile for
fear of the thoughts it could trigger.”-Unknown-2
Perceived
effects on life
Positive
effect
 “I am so grateful that she is in this world, but shifting my
focus from myself to her has been an adjustment. ”- Tess
Jones, 31, Pittsburgh, PA
 “the pregnancy gave me a really great appreciation for
my body which was an incredible feeling.”- Melainie
Rogers, 48, New York, NY
 “pregnancy was the indicator that I could heal and that
complete recovery is absolutely possible”- Johanna
Kandel, 39, West Palm Beach, FL(Bye, 2018)
 “I know that, despite the challenges behind and those that
lie ahead, one thing that I am not is alone”- Unknown 2
Majority of data has been collected from vice.com which consist of four stores of women
who had eating disorder and had dealt with their pregnancy. One story of a pregnant lady had
been taken from Crystalkarges.com and one story has been taken from self.com. These are the
stories of all those women who had dealt with their eating disorder for years and then they had
dealt with their pregnancy time period. Some of them had always heard that they are soon going
to relapse to their eating disorder again or they might harm their baby. Here three main sub
themes have been made and each them has been sub divided and 6 sub themes have been made.
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These themes are created in such a manner that they can justify quotations of user stories in an
easy and proper manner. All the themes and sub themes consist of experience or feeling of six
different women’s that they faced or felt during their pregnancy after eating disorder in
Quotations. These themes clearly explain what those women felt when they were pregnant and
what were their fears with respect to their past history of eating disorder.
There were three main themes that that were able to describe feeling of almost all the users or it
can also be said these themes were common in most of the user stories. All the three themes were
made according to the feelings, thoughts and experiences. The three main themes are: Negative
views/beliefs, Different kinds of thoughts and Perceived effects on life.
Negative views/beliefs about Pregnant After an Eating Disorder this theme further
consisted of two other different themes those were: scariest time and Other different feeling.
(Emery, 2017) scariest time is a time where an individual is frightened that they might not be
able to deal with their situation. In scariest time subtheme most of the users have explained their
scary thoughts of relapsing to their previous eating disorder situation. Melainie Rogers explains
that she was scared that chemical shift in her brain during her pregnancy can shift her focus to
eating disorder again. Next subtheme is different feeling in which an individual has various
feeing which makes it difficult for them to accept the truth. In this different feeling sub theme
Tess explains that the thought that she could not be fixed or cannot overcome her eating disorder.
Another main theme was Different kinds of thoughts caused by Pregnant After an Eating
Disorder where an individual deal with various kinds of thoughts or feelings they had to deal
with or they feel. This main theme further consisted of three more themes i.e. nervous,
Confusion, learned and Feeling bad or difficulty in accepting. First sub theme was nervous where
most of the women explains their nervousness related to pregnancy and knowing their past eating
disorder history. One of the women named Melainie Rogers explains that she was nervous
because she knew her history and she also knew that she had a chance of shifting back to her past
condition. Another subtheme was confusion where they were confused among their personalities
i.e. one personality of their said that they should focus on their body more and another personally
as a mother said them to focus on their baby and its health more. One of the user stories of a
women named as Tess Jones explains that she knows what calories a sugar free gum contains
and what she should do to stop eating but gaining weight was a complete foreign concept for her.
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(Mantel, Hirschberg and Stephansson, 2019) Another subtheme was learned in which an
individual explains that they have learned from their experience. One of the women named as
Lauren Hill explained her confusion in a different manner where she explains that she wants to
explain her daughter importance of food and exercise not the message that she had delivered to
her parents i.e. importance of being thin.Next subtheme was Feeling bad or difficulty in
accepting where women used to feel bad of their eating disorder especially when people used to
comment on their body or on their baby and some of them faced some difficulties in accepting
their situation and moving on. Tess Jones explains that she used to feel bad when people used to
comment that she did not looked pregnant and she is going to have world’s tiniest baby. This
used to make her feel that she is not a good mother as she cannot deal with her situation.
Next main them was Perceived effects on life is a kind of feeling in which an individual
becomes aware of something or starts to notice something. This theme consisted of only one sub
theme that was positive effect. In this subtheme most of the users have explained development of
a feeling of loving themselves or loving their baby and view this pregnancy as a positive thing
within their lives. Many user stories explained that pregnancy helped them to change their point
of view towards their body as started looking themselves as well as their baby. Tess Jones also
explains that she was grateful to her pregnancy as it helped her to shift her focus on herself to her
daughter. One of the unknown women explained that she knows despite of the challenges in the
past or challenges that are lying ahead, she was no alone. Another women named as Johanna
Kandel explained that she was happy because of her pregnancy as it helped her to believe that
she can heal in a positive way or recovery from her condition is possible and she no longer need
to torture herself.(Pettersson, Zandian and Clinton, 2016)
CONCLUSION
From this report we have come to a conclusion about the different types of disorders and
the issues of females during there pregnancy. This report was being divided into four parts which
are the introduction of the report in which there was some point which were covered in the report
which were mainly related to the pregnancy and eating disorders. Then the report covered the
description of the chosen analytical process which covered some point relating to how the data is
gathered and what are the sources of the data including websites. The report analysis is shown in
this section of the report.
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The next section of the report is the main analysis of the data, in this section the finding
was written in a table format which shows the different techniques being adopted. In this table
the IPA techniques was being used. This section has included all the briefs which were discussed
in the introduction of the report like the different health care which must be taken during the time
of pregnancy and the eating disorder effects on the health of the individual. Further research
could attempt to carry out a deeper analysis of a larger sample, with many differing
demographics, using qualitative research, to ensure for the best information to be collected, and
therefore more to be done in the improvement of treatment for eating disorder sufferers.
Comprehensively the report is enough to gain the knowledge of the two issues of eating disorder
and pregnancy.
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REFERENCES
Online
This Is What it's Like to Be Pregnant After an Eating Disorder. 2019. [Online]. Available
through : < https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/ywnpkw/pregnant-after-eating-disorder>.
How to Survive Pregnancy After Eating Disorder Recovery. 2019. [Online]. Available through :
<https://www.crystalkarges.com/blog/how-to-survive-pregnancy-after-an-eating-
disorder>.
What It’s Like to Deal With Anorexia While You’re Pregnant. 2019. [Online]. Available
through : <https://www.self.com/story/anorexia-while-youre-pregnant>.
Bye, A., and et.al., 2018. Supporting women with eating disorders during pregnancy and the
postnatal period. Journal of Health Visiting. 6(5). pp.224-228.
dos Santos, A.M., and et.al., 2017. Presence of eating disorders and its relationship to anxiety
and depression in pregnant women. Midwifery. 51. pp.12-15.
Emery, R.L, and et,al., 2017. Adapting the eating disorder examination for use during pregnancy:
Preliminary results from a community sample of women with overweight and obesity.
International Journal of Eating Disorders. 50(5). pp.597-601.
Kolko, R.P., and et.al., 2017. Loss of control over eating before and during early pregnancy
among community women with overweight and obesity. International Journal of Eating
Disorders. 50(5). pp.582-586.
Mantel, Ä., Hirschberg, A.L. and Stephansson, O., 2019. Association of Maternal Eating
Disorders With Pregnancy and Neonatal Outcomes. JAMA psychiatry.
Micali, N., and et.al., 2018. Pregnancy loss of control over eating: a longitudinal study of
maternal and child outcomes. The American journal of clinical nutrition. 108(1).
pp.101-107.
Nguyen, A.N., and et.al., 2017. Maternal history of eating disorders: Diet quality during
pregnancy and infant feeding. Appetite. 109. pp.108-114.
Pettersson, C.B., Zandian, M. and Clinton, D., 2016. Eating disorder symptoms pre-and
postpartum. Archives of women's mental health. 19(4). pp.675-680.
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