a shift toward childbearing in one-child families through a mindfulness-based stress reduction program: a randomized controlled trial

Objective: fertility patterns are a key to the estimation of future population size, but they are restricted by serious indecision. one-child families are one of these patterns that is caused by a set of factors and one of these factors is the fear of re-pregnancy. in this regard, this study aimed to use a mindfulnessbased stress reduction (mbsr) program to reduce the fear of women who have been experiencing anxiety after their first pregnancy and delivery. materials and methods: this interventional study was conducted on 67 one-child women, who at least 6 years have been passed since the birth of their child and according to the short form of the pregnancy related anxiety questionnaire (praq-17), have been experienced anxiety. these women were randomly divided into control and intervention groups. for the intervention group, the mbsr program was conducted in 8 sessions, once every week, each session lasting 2.5 hours. at the end of the program, a second praq-17 was completed by both groups. results: the findings showed that the mbsr approach in the intervention group significantly decreased the anxiety score in total (p=0.001) and individually in all subcategories. conclusion: the mbsr approach can reduce the anxiety of one-child women who have experienced anxiety after their pregnancy and childbirth. thus, using this method in helping women with pregnancyrelated anxiety is recommended to increase the birth rate.