Beyond the Numbers: Making Sense of Early Parenthood

Sarah
Jan 27
4 min read

What research reveals about experience, meaning, and bonding

When Experience Matters as Much as Evidence

Early parenthood is full of numbers. Weeks pregnant. Cervical checks. Apgar scores. Wake windows. Total hours of sleep. Information is everywhere, and much of it is framed as essential.

But it rarely captures what early parenthood actually feels like.

What often lingers beneath the the numbers is something quieter and very human: our tendency to organize experiences around the moments that felt intense, frightening, disappointing, or unexpected. Parents, like all humans, are wired to remember what felt threatening or overwhelming , even when many parts of the experience were neutral, supportive, or even positive.

Recent research offers an important reminder: how experiences are felt and interpreted matters just as much as what technically occurred.

What the Research Looked At

A study published in the Infant Mental Health Journal explored how prenatal mental health, birth experience, and early postpartum bonding are connected. Researchers followed pregnant women through pregnancy and into the early weeks after birth, examining symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress, alongside how women later described their birth experience and their sense of connection with their baby.

Rather than treating birth as a discrete medical event, the study centered something often overlooked in both research and care: the parent’s subjective experience.

Not just what happened, but how it was lived.

How a moment during labor stuck with you. How a conversation landed. How your body felt afterward. And how those pieces were carried forward.

What the Study Found

The findings were both clear and layered:

Higher levels of prenatal depression and stress were associated with more difficulties in early postpartum bonding.
A parent’s subjective birth experience helped explain this relationship.
How birth was emotionally experienced mattered for how parents felt in relationship with their baby in the early weeks.

This points to an important disparity: objective events and subjective experience do not always align, and when they diverge, it is the lived experience that shapes the relationship.

Why Experience Still Matters (Even When the Numbers Look Fine)

The findings from this study point us toward something larger than any single outcome. Prenatal mental health symptoms didn’t just predict differences in bonding on their own, a parent’s subjective experience of birth helped explain how those early emotional states carried forward into the postpartum relationship. In other words, the way birth was experienced mattered, not only as an event, but as a meaningful emotional moment that shaped early connection.

This isn’t a question of accuracy or blame. A parent’s experience is not something to be corrected by the numbers, it’s something to be understood. A caregiver’s emotional world directly shapes how they respond to their child, moment to moment.

Stress, depression, trauma history, cultural expectations, and available support all influence how interactions are felt and interpreted.

When experience and the numbers don’t line up, it doesn’t mean one is wrong.

It means we are looking at two different kinds of information, and both are necessary to understand the relationship.

We see this same dynamic in research on early feeding and breastfeeding. Studies have found that how parents experience feeding is often shaped less by growth charts or diaper counts and more by pain, exhaustion, expectations, and the emotional support surrounding those early feeds. A baby may be growing well, while feeding still feels overwhelming or fragile to the parent.

This doesn’t mean the the numbers is irrelevant, and it doesn’t mean the parent’s experience is mistaken. It means that lived experience is what shapes confidence, stress, and responsiveness in the relationship.

Why This Matters for Early Relational Health

This is why early relational health cannot focus solely on the child or on observable behavior. A baby does not experience care in isolation, they experience it through the nervous system, emotions, and meanings carried by their caregiver.

When a parent feels overwhelmed, disconnected, or unsupported, that internal state becomes part of the relational environment. It shapes tone of voice, responsiveness, patience, and the subtle rhythms of interaction that build (or strain) connection.

Supporting early relationships, then, requires attending to both sides of the dyad: the child’s cues and the parent’s inner experience that shapes how those cues are received and responded to.

Holding Experience and Evidence Together

Research like this invites us to hold two truths at the same time. Evidence helps us see patterns, risks, and pathways that matter. Lived experience tells us how those moments are actually carried in the body, the relationship, and the day-to-day reality of parenting.

One does not invalidate the other , they need each other.

When we honor a parent’s emotional experience as meaningful, we create space for compassion rather than correction. We move away from asking, “What should this look like?” and toward asking, “What is this like for you?”

Early relational health isn’t built through perfect pregnancies, ideal births, or seamless bonding stories. It’s built when parents are supported in making sense of their own experiences , especially when those experiences are complex, unexpected, or heavy.

Because when parents feel seen in their experience, they’re better able to see their child.