Fathering activities during early infancy

Fathering activities of 16 fathers of firstborns were surveyed via questionnaire to assess their involvement in physical caretaking, affective interaction and support of mother through participation in household tasks. Results indicated that student fathers who had previous infant care experience, whose infants were unplanned and whose wives were either employed or attending school spent the most time interacting with their infants. Other variables explored which had little effect on father's interaction time included: formal education, attendance at prenatal clases, infant's sex and method of feeding, family isolation. Fathers spent more time in affective interaction than in physical caretaking. Time spent by fathers in affective interaction was nearly equal to that of mothers, while time spent in physical caretaking was much greater for mothers.     

A life worth giving? The threshold for permissible withdrawal of life support from disabled newborn infants

When is it permissible to allow a newborn infant to die on the basis of their future quality of life? The prevailing official view is that treatment may be withdrawn only if the burdens in an infant's future life outweigh the benefits. In this paper I outline and defend an alternative view. On the Threshold View, treatment may be withdrawn from infants if their future well-being is below a threshold that is close to, but above the zero-point of well-being. I present four arguments in favor of the Threshold View, and identify and respond to several counter-arguments. I conclude that it is justifiable in some circumstances for parents and doctors to decide to allow an infant to die even though the infant's life would be worth living. The Threshold View provides a justification for treatment decisions that is more consistent, more robust, and potentially more practical than the standard view.     

Applying developmental previewing to the principles of family therapy

This paper discusses the application of principles of infant psychiatry to the diagnosis and treatment of multigenerational family conflict. Using a technique referred to as previewing, the therapist can focus on the interpersonal meaning that the infant's development precipitates in the family and determine how the parents' relationships with the infant replicate their relationships with their own families of origin. The therapist may then use these insights for overcoming conflict and for acclimating parents to new developmental skills in an optimal manner. Specific suggestions for how parents may promote more adaptive patterns of interaction with the infant using previewing are offered.     

Exploring triangulation in infancy: two contrasted cases

Two contrasted father-mother-infant interactions are observed longitudinally during trilogue play. They illustrate the contribution of recent research to the exploration of triangulation in infancy: namely, the infant's capacity to handle triangular interactions and share her affects with her two parents, and the way that this capacity is recruited in functional versus problematic alliances. It is likely that an infant under stress when interacting with one parent will protest at that parent and also at the other. Such is the case when, for example, the father acts intrusively while playing with his baby. The infant is then driven to avert and turns to the mother. The regulation of this dyadic intrusion-avoidance pattern at family level depends on the family alliance. When coparenting is supportive, the mother validates the infant's bid for help without interfering with the father. Thus, the problematic pattern is contained in the dyad, and the infant's triangular capacities remain in the service of her own developmental goals. But when coparenting is hostile-competitive, the mother ignores the infant's bid or engages with her in a way that interferes with her play with her father. In this case, the infant's triangular capacities are used to relieve the tension between the parents. The importance of tracing family process back to infancy for family therapy is discussed.     

Parental Psychological Distress and Confidence After an Infant’s Birth: The Role of Attachment Representations in Parents of Infants with Congenital Anomalies and Parents of Healthy Infants

The present study aimed to examine parental psychological distress and confidence after an infant’s birth, when parenting an infant with a diagnosis of a congenital anomaly, and to understand the role of attachment representations on parental adjustment. Parents of infants with a congenital anomaly (44 couples) and parents of healthy infants (46 couples) completed measures of adult attachment representations and of psychological distress and parental confidence (one month after the infant’s birth). Results showed no group differences in psychological distress. Mothers in the clinical group presented lower confidence than mothers in the comparison group, while for fathers the inverse pattern was found, showing their involvement in the caretaking of the infant. Insecure attachment representations predicted parental psychological distress, and a moderator role of group was found only for fathers. These results highlight the role of secure attachment representations as an individual resource in stress-inducing situations.     

Stability and change in parental attitudes following an infant's birth into traditional and nontraditional Swedish families

Fifty-one Swedish couples were interviewed in the last trimester of their first pregnancy and again when their infants were 5 months old. Twenty-five of the couples indicated that the mothers would be primary caretakers throughout the first year (traditional families) whereas the other 26 couples said that the fathers would be primary caretakers for between 1 and 6.5 months during the year (nontraditional families). Analyses showed that the value of parenthood and the value of work were stable from the first (prenatal) to the second (postnatal) interview, although prenatally-anticipated paternal involvement was only marginally correlated with actual paternal involvement. Subjects agreed with their spouses when asked about the same issues, suggesting that the constructs had some validity. Parenthood and work were more highly valued by nontraditional parents than by traditional parents. Degree of paternal caretaking was positively correlated with the fathers satisfaction with and value of parenthood and negatively correlated with their resentment of the infant. Correlations differed somewhat among traditional and nontraditional mothers and fathers. Fathers were more involved with "difficult" sons and "easy" daughters than with "easy" sons and "difficult" daughters.     

Mother and father adjustment during early parenthood: the roles of infant temperament and coparenting relationship quality

We explored how parent gender, infant temperament, and coparenting dynamics worked together to shape mothers’ and fathers’ depressive symptoms, stress, and parental efficacy during early parenthood. We were interested in the coparenting relationship as a context that shapes how parents respond to their infant's temperamental qualities. Participants were 139 couples who had recently given birth to their first child. Parent reports of temperament were collected when the infant was 4–8 months old and reports of coparenting and parent adjustment were collected at 13 months. Two-level random intercept models revealed interactions between temperament and coparenting, highlighting the family system as a context for how men and women adapt to their parenting role. There was little evidence for mother–father differences in these associations.     

Gender label and perceived infant emotionality: a partial replication of a classic study

In a study often referred to as "classic," Condry and Condry (1976) showed a videotaped infant to participants, telling half of them the infant was a boy and half it was a girl. Participants who thought they were viewing a boy rated the infant's reaction to a jack-in-the-box as anger; those who thought they were viewing a girl rated the reaction as fear. Participants in the present partial replication of the Condrys' study did not rate the infant differently based on the infant's gender label, although there was evidence that participants' own sex affects their perception of an infant's emotionality. Results were discussed in light of inconsistent results among other gender-labeling studies and relevant methodological, historical, and theoretical issues.     

Recognizing the infant as subject in infant-parent psychotherapy

Drawing on Winnicott's view of infants as subjects entitled to an intervention in their own right, infants as the referred patient have been seen in infant-parent psychotherapy for 20 years at the Royal Children's Hospital, Melbourne, Australia. This is a radically different view of infant symptomatology than viewing it as only expressing an aspect of the mother's unconscious. The clinical pathway differentiates the therapy from much parent-infant psychotherapy. The author describes the theoretical model of a twofold approach to understanding the infant's experience through interactive dialogue between therapist and infant, and sharing this understanding with the parents, and illustrates it with cases of failure-to-thrive infants. She discusses two criticisms: first, that infant-parent psychotherapy may undermine the parents and, second, that brief parent-infant psychotherapy does not alter parents' insecure attachment status. Videotaped sessions often show rapid improvement; parents generally feel relieved. This approach potentially shapes not only parents' and infants' representations, but also their implicit knowledge of relationships-partly, it is suggested, through activating the mirror neuron system to bring about implicit memory change. Change may therefore be longer lasting than psychoanalytic theory presently conceives. The approach is relevant in an outpatient setting: gains were maintained long term in 90% of out-patient cases.     

Infant temperament and maternal sensitivity behavior in the first year of life

Maternal sensitivity behavior (MSB) and infant temperament were investigated among 56 Finnish low-risk mothers and their full-term and healthy infants. The mothers were from families with good economic status, the infant's parents lived together, and the mothers were well educated. Mothers and infants were video-recorded in free-play situations at home, and evaluated using the Parent-Child Early Relational Assessment Scale (PCERA). The infants were also assessed using the Revised Infant Temperament Questionnaire (R-ITQ) and the Toddler Temperament Questionnaire (TTQ). Most of the temperament characteristics showed moderate stability during the first year. MSB was related to infant temperament characteristics at 3, 6 and 12 months of age. Gender differences in temperament were evident already at 6 and 12 months of age. Few prior studies have reported gender differences in infancy.     

On the vicissitudes of early primary surrogate mothering

I have noted estrangement from biological mothers and intolerance of intimate relationships in patients with an early history of primary surrogate mothering. This observation facilitated discovery of such early histories in 31 of 102 patients I examined during a five-year period. With a review of the literature, and clinical examples, I attempt to associate the estrangement and intolerance with the mother's exclusion resulting from her infant's close tie to a surrogate and the infant's inevitable traumatic loss of the latter. In the analyses of screen phenomena, mother and surrogate mother transferences, all peculiar to that caretaking, the surrogate is seen to emerge from obscurity. In the clinical examples (limited to losses of surrogates following the infant's eighteenth month) screen memories, dreams, and eclipse are found to possess a common feature: the image of the surrogate is screened by that of the mother. Biological mother and, in the countertransference, the analyst play a significant role in perpetuating the concealment of the surrogate.     

Dimensions of maltreated children's home behavior: A factor analytic approach

This study identified dimensions of home behavior of maltreating parents and their children through exploratory factor analysis. Five child factors were identified: self-directed behavior, affiliative behavior, negativity, positive social interaction, and questioning. Five parent factors were identified: positive social interaction, caretaking, discipline, refusal, and hostility. Multivariate analyses indicated that neglected children and abused children had less positive social interaction than adequately reared children. Children showed more questioning and less negativity at older ages. Abusing parents were most hostile, whereas neglecting parents showed the least positive social interaction. Abusing parents directed less hostility toward older children than the other child-rearing groups. Parents exhibited less caretaking behavior toward older children and directed more positive social interaction toward children with higher developmental quotients. The results suggest that factor analysis is a viable means of identifying dimensions of child and parent behavior which could facilitate comparison of effects across studies.     

Assessing the patterns that prevent teenage pregnancy

Adolescence is a time of rapid developmental change and emotional upheaval as teenagers strive to assert their autonomy. In a similar vein, pregnancy--even under optimal circumstances with an adult mother--has been labelled a developmental crisis. Pregnancy during the teenage years has a synergistic effect, magnifying maturational changes in both the teenage girl and her infant. Recommended intervention strategies in cases of adolescent pregnancy should address not only the imminent mother-infant relationship, but the dyad's future transformations. One intervention technique is previewing, which is derived from the rhythms of adaptive exchange between mature mothers and their infants. The aim of previewing with adolescent parents is to help the teenager become more attuned to the infant's imminent developmental skills and to heighten their rapport.     

Co-sleeping as a proximal context for infant development: The importance of physical touch

Co-sleeping is a complex familial phenomenon that has yet to be well understood by Western scientists. This paper provides an interdisciplinary review of research from anthropology, nursing, pediatrics, sociology, social work, public health, family studies, and psychology to focus on the role of physical touch in the context of co-sleeping, and how close physical contact in this context affects infants and their caregivers. Including an anthropological, evolutionary view of co-sleeping with other perspectives highlights it as an experience-expectant proximal context for infant growth and development. From this view, the importance of physical contact and touch in the nighttime caretaking microenvironment of co-sleeping becomes a central question, rather than an artifactual byproduct of “unhealthy” sleep arrangements. Rather than trying to eliminate co-sleeping, public health messages for parents would likely benefit from a more culturally-sensitive approach that focuses on advising how to co-sleep safely for families choosing it. For families trying to retain physical closeness between parent(s) and infants in the context of modern (especially Western) infant care practices that have reduced this physical contact, co-sleeping can be an important developmental context for encouraging and engaging in sensitive and responsive caregiving and providing a context for maternal-infant physiological synchrony and regulation.     

Mother–infant communication can be enhanced after conception by in‐vitro fertilization

To determine if stress associated with artificial pregnancy treatment might affect early communication, video microanalysis was applied to examine face‐to‐face play between infants and their mothers in the first 5 months. Three groups of infants participated: 8 born after in‐vitro fertilization (IVF) treatment employing parental gametes; 8 born after standard infertility treatment (INF), which did not include IVF; and 8 infants whose parents had experienced no infertility problems (Control group: C). All were videotaped at home in free play with their mothers at 4, 7, 13, and 21 weeks of age. A 3‐min extract of each video was reviewed in detail by means of an objective coding system, to define the style of communication. Data from this analysis was subjected to two separate repeated measures of analyses of variance. We found no evidence of detrimental effects of infertility treatment on mother–infant communication, but there were “positive” differences in behavior in the pairs where the mother had been so treated. Thus, while maternal “caretaking” episodes had become infrequent in the control group by the age of 21 weeks, in the two treatment groups the mothers continued to show many caretaking behaviors with infants of this age. Furthermore, infants of both the IVF and INF groups showed significantly higher frequencies of “play” episodes than those in the control group (p = 0.018 and p = 0.004, respectively). Apart from these differences, mother–infant interactions were generally the same in the three groups. The results indicate that communication between mothers and infants is likely to develop along the normal path after IVF or INF treatment, but that mothers who have had these infertility treatments may be more attentive to their infants, and their infants are significantly more playful. Since the IVF and the INF groups were similar, it would appear that these differences from the control group are related to the experience of a successful treatment for infertility, and not related to any particular stresses that may be associated with IVF treatment. ©2001 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.     

Infants' social withdrawal and parents' mental health

This study examined the association of infants' sustained social withdrawal with parents' self-reported current depressive symptoms and perceived mental health. Two hundred and sixty infants aged 4, 8 and 18 months were examined with the Baby Alarm Distress Scale (ADBB). Parents' depressive symptoms and perceived mental health during the preceding year were elicited through questionnaires. Mother's current depressive symptoms and father's perceived moderate or poor mental health during the preceding year both independently increased the infant's risk of withdrawal. When both parents had mental health problems, the infant was more likely to be withdrawn. Infant's social withdrawal should alert clinicians to examine parental mental health. Also, if the parent has mental health problems, the infant's social behavior and possible withdrawal should be examined. Families where both parents experience poor mental health should be identified, and treated, while the infants of these families in particular seem to be at risk for social withdrawal.     

Mother and infant coordinate heart rhythms through episodes of interaction synchrony

Animal studies demonstrated the powerful impact of maternal-infant social contact on the infant's physiological systems, yet the online effects of social interactions on the human infant's physiology remain poorly understood. Mothers and their 3-month old infants were observed during face-to-face interactions while cardiac output was collected from mother and child. Micro-analysis of the partners’ behavior marked episodes of gaze, affect, and vocal synchrony. Time-series analysis showed that mother and infant coordinate heart rhythms within lags of less than 1 s. Bootstrapping analysis indicated that the concordance between maternal and infant biological rhythms increased significantly during episodes of affect and vocal synchrony compared to non-synchronous moments. Humans, like other mammals, can impact the physiological processes of the attachment partner through the coordination of visuo-affective social signals.     

The association between observed non-verbal maternal responses at 12 months and later infant development at 18 months and IQ at 4 years: a longitudinal study

Background

An infant's early environment has an important influence on their development. For example, the sensitivity and warmth of a mother's responses towards her infant is associated with the infant's later socio-emotional development. However, it is less clear whether maternal responses are associated with the infant's later cognitive development.

Method

We used data from a large UK cohort study to investigate the association between non-verbal maternal responses and later infant development and IQ. Maternal responses were rated at 12 months during an observed mother–infant interaction. Infant development was assessed using the Griffiths scales at 18 months and IQ at 4 years was assessed using the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence (WPPSI). Data on the infant's developmental level at 6 months (prior to the maternal response ratings) was also available. The complete case sample comprised 732 mother–infant pairs.

Results

There was evidence for an association between positive maternal responses and infant development at 18 months. After adjusting for infant developmental level at 6 months and other confounders, we found a difference of 0.25 standard deviations (coef 2.0, 95% CI (0.8–3.2), p = 0.002) on the Griffiths scales between infant's whose mothers showed positive compared to neutral non-verbal responses at 12 months. However, an association between positive maternal responses and IQ at 4 years diminished following adjustment for maternal educational attainment.

Conclusion

The results provide evidence that positive maternal responses are associated with improved development in infants at 18 months. However, the association between maternal response and IQ at 4 years may be explained by higher educational attainment in mothers who show positive responses. Future studies are needed to explore the influence of maternal responses on different aspects of infant development as well as the role of maternal factors such as education.