Pregnancy is a potentially stressful event which can lead to such complications as nausea, insomnia, preterm labor, preeclampsia and-so on. Due to the spectacular case of developing countries and insufficient information in this regard, the present study is conducted to determine the stressors associated with pregnancy.

This study is a descriptive-analytical research. In order to develop an instrument for determining the stressors appropriate to the social and cultural status of Iranian community, a qualitative approach was adopted to do a semistructured interview with obstetricians and 30 pregnant women who varied in age, parity, education, etc. Content validity used for validation, and Cronbach alpha was calculated (0.75) for the reliability of the instrument. Relevant data were obtained in four categories including personal characteristics, fertility, stressors and social support through multistage sampling and structured interview with 165 qualified pregnant women who referred to private and governmental care centers in Mashad, Iran in 1377 (1998). Data analysis was dined in SPSS using factor analysis and chi-square with the confidence interval of 95 percent.

51 stressors associated with pregnancy were identified: (1) Health, (2) What people think of me, (3) Environmental matters, (4) Family-Personal Relationships, (5) Religious issues and (6) Financial Problems. The strongest stressor include giving birth to babies with major disease or disorder, labor pain, damage to mother’s health during pregnancy or labor, change in the Planning. 16.7% experienced server stress and 13.6% mild stress. Statistically significant relationships were found to exist between stress and mother’s education, satisfaction of marriage, gravidity, parity, satisfaction rate of pregnancy, social support and partner support (p