Correlates of Maternal Attitudes Toward Preterm Infants

Although neglect of preterm children can cause physical and psychological complications, special treatment can obviate many of these problems. We sought to discover factors that might allow us to predict which mothers would have more negative attitudes toward preterm infants, Using the concept of hedonic relevance, we hypothesized that any negative variable associated with having a preterm child would lead to more negative attitudes toward that child. We administered a modified form of the Schaefer and Bell Parental Attitude Research Instrument, and also a questionnaire on various background variables to 52 women who had recently borne a premature child. Correlational analysis supported our hypothesis. Some of the most significant correlates of negative maternal attitudes were: the mother being young (r = .40), non-white (r = .34), and less religious (r = .34), having had a brief marriage so far (r = .27), and feeling responsible for the child being premature (r = -.37), with probability levels ranging from .05 to .01. These data constitute the beginnings of a profile which health professionals can use to spot potentially negative mothers who might need special preventive attention.