Body Image Concerns and Self-Esteem During Pregnancy

Background: Pregnancy although a physiological process causes considerable physical and emotional changes. The body image concern is an inner ex­perience of the outer appearance of the individual and may have an impact on self esteem of an individual during this vulnerable period. Aim: To assess body image concerns during pregnancy, assess self esteem during pregnancy and also correlate the body image concerns with self–esteem during pregnancy. Materials and methods:  A quantitative descriptive research approach was used to conduct the study. The sample size was 120 pregnant women. Purposive sampling was used for data collection. Rosenberg Self–Esteem Scale, and Self–Structured Likert scale was used to assess self–esteem, and body image concerns respectively. Results: Percentage distribution of body image concerns among pregnant women according to the concerns showed that 25% percentage had positive while 75% had negative concerns. 8.3% had low self esteem on Rosenberg Self–Esteem Scale. Self–esteem and body image concerns had low positive relationship & it was statistically significant (p<0. 024).Conclusion: On the basis of present study findings, we conclude that health professionals should create awareness among pregnant women about the changes occurring in pregnancy to change the body image concerns and hence not affect their self esteem.