Understanding Life Transitions: A Case Study of Support Needs of Low-Income Mothers

Life transitions are an integral part of the human experience. However, research shows that lack of support during life transitions can result in adverse health outcomes. To better understand the support needs and structures of low-income women during transition to motherhood, we interviewed 10 women and their 14 supporters during the transition. Our findings suggest that support needs and structures of mothers evolve during transition, and that they also vary by socio-economic contexts. In this paper, we detail our study design and findings. Informed by our findings, we posit that all life-transitions are not the same, and that therefore, the optimal support intervention point varies for different life transitions. Currently there are no tools available to identify optimal support intervention points during life transitions. To this end, we also introduce a preliminary framework - the Strength-Stress-Analysis (SSA) framework - to identify optimal support intervention points during life-transitions.