Cyber-moms facing motherhood: Holding functions and regressive movements in parenting websites

Mothers and mothers-to-be often become e-health users because of their need for sharing emotional and practical parental experiences. In this sense, web forums seem to positively contribute to parenting skills and transition to motherhood. This study aims at exploring how 379 Italian mothers use two Italian forums, the manifest and latent contents of their interactions, and the emotional connections between their own maternal experiences and the e-group dynamics. The qualitative analysis of 7433 comments pointed out five main themes, describing how mothers make sense of their experiences through the online dimension: the group; I am; personal experience; perspective knowhow; tech-moms. This study confirms that parenting experience represents a big challenge for rising mothers. Moreover, it shows that the e-groups can alternatively reproduce a peer group functioning and a feeding breast, a reassuring container with holding functions, or a “toilet breast”, encouraging progressive as well as regressive movements.