Who Do Mothers Trust? Generational Shifts In Perinatal Advice

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1-1-2026

School

Social Science and Global Studies

Abstract

Perinatal women must navigate decisions about health and wellbeing for both themselves and their offspring while confronted with information, sometimes conflicting, from numerous sources. Advances in technology and information literacy have increased the amount of information available to pregnant and postpartum individuals, which can be helpful, but sometimes confusing. This raises questions about which sources of information perinatal individuals trust, find credible, and rely on for advice, and how sources may differ across generations. In the current study, a global sample of 386 mothers and 102 grandmothers responded to an online survey about trust, credibility, and reliance on various sources of information during pregnancy and postpartum. Overall, medical sources were more trusted than family and digital sources, and recent mothers reported higher trust in medical sources than did grandmothers. When looking at perceived credibility of different sources, participants’ own mothers were rated as most credible overall, while recent mothers rated medical providers, their own mothers, and friends as more credible than the grandmothers did. Both mothers and grandmothers reported the highest reliance on medical sources for perinatal information, however, recent mothers relied more on medical providers and online sources than did grandmothers, and grandmothers relied more on their own grandmothers and related peers than the mothers did. These findings are consistent with research showing that perinatal people trust and rely largely on information from medical providers along with other information sources, but also suggest that generational shifts in perinatal perceptions and reliance on information sources may be occurring.

Publication Title

Human Nature

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