These benefits include but are not limited to the power of the human touch and presence, of being surrounded by supportive people of a family's own choosing, security in birthing in a familiar and comfortable environment of home, feeling less inhibited in expressing unique responses to labor (such as making sounds, moving freely, adopting positions of comfort, being intimate with her
partner, nursing a toddler, eating and drinking as needed and desired, expressing or practicing individual cultural, value and faith based rituals that enhance coping)-- all of which can lead to easier labors and births, not having to make a decision
about when to go to the hospital during labor (going too early can slow progress and increase use of the cascade of risky interventions, while going too late can be intensely uncomfortable or even lead to a risky unplanned birth en route), being able to choose how and when to include children (who are making their own
adjustments and are less challenged by a lengthy absence of their parents and excessive interruptions of family routines), enabling uninterrupted family boding and breastfeeding, huge cost savings for insurance companies and those without insurance, and increasing the likelihood of having a deeply empowering and profoundly positive, life changing pregnancy and birth experience.
feeling disconnected (like roommates), having no intimacy (emotional or sexual), couples who have the same fight repeatedly... for years, feeling like one person is chasing the other, feeling like one
partner's focus is on work / kids / anywhere else, one person thinking / considering divorce while the other wants to stay, infidelity,
adjustment to blended families, and especially couples who start out having a conversation
about what's for dinner and find themselves in WWIII.
Results indicated that (1) depressed patients and their spouses were less dyadically adjusted than nondepressed spouses, (2) causal and responsibility attributions
about depressive behaviors predicted lower dyadic
adjustment, and (3) attributions of causality mediated the relationship between group status (depressed or nondepressed) and dyadic
adjustment among spouses who had higher expectations for their
partner to change.