Reconstructing a niche sociality during the postpartum period: A qualitative study about the experience of becoming a mother as an immigrant in Switzerland

Abstract

Epidemiological studies conducted in high-income countries have shown that immigrant mothers and their children suffer from an augmented morbidity and mortality, including with regard to their mental health. Drawing on the “niche sociality” concept (Manning et al., 2023) as an analytic tool, our paper aims to analyze the postpartum experience of immigrant mothers in Switzerland as well as the circumstances to which these mothers connect their experience and often their distress. This qualitative study included semidirected interviews with immigrant mothers (n=20) and with the health and social care professionals who cared for them (n=26) as well as ethnographic observations. We conducted a thematic analysis and triangulated the data produced with mothers themselves and professionals. Immigrant mothers shared mixed feelings regarding their experience. They often lived their maternity while experiencing a gendered loneliness. As members of transnational families, they dearly missed their relatives living abroad. Their position as new mothers and as immigrant persons comprised complex sociomaterial ordeals related to their (un)employment, housing, and sociality. Drawing from their practice in the community, professionals' narratives completed mothers'. Professionals critiqued the unequal access to quality health care as well as the petty measures that interfered with mothers' and infants’ safety that were taken by street-level bureaucrats (Lipsky, 2010 (1980)). Reflexive and engaging, mothers shared sensible and nuanced narratives about their experience and initiatives to rebuild their niche sociality.