Child-rearing expectations and developmental knowledge according to maternal age and parity

Psychosocial Aspects of Care and Nutrition

The quality of psychosocial care provided the young child is reflected in the caregiver's responsiveness, warmth and affection, involvement with the child, and encouragement of autonomy and exploration. First, research was examined linking the quality of psychosocial care to a child's development of mental abilities, and to his or her growth and nutrition status. There is considerable correlational evidence and some experimental evidence for this linkage. Second, the barriers to adequate psychosocial care were explored, including maternal beliefs and confidence, stress and depression, social support, and autonomy and control of resources. Third, a number of strategies to enhance psychosocial care as a mechanism for increasing the child's nutrition status are described, at the level of the child, the caregiver, the child-caregiver relationship, and the community. All of the work was interpreted in terms of an interactive or transactional model of child development.

Caregiver Role: Ideas about Feeding Infants and Toddlers

This work represents an initial effort to describe expectations and attitudes that might contribute to variation in the caregiving role as it relates to feeding young children. The study also investigates the impact of performance contexts on attitudes about one aspect of caregiving—feeding. One hundred twenty-four primary caregivers of typically developing infants from 4 to 28 months were interviewed about their expectations for developmental milestones related to feeding and their attitudes about how a parent should respond to different meal-time behaviors of children. Reliability of the instruments was explored. Test-retest reliability of caregiver expectations for when milestones were expected, as captured on Feeding Skills Development, ranged from good (.87) to poor (not significant). Reliability of attitudes captured by the second instrument, Feeding Stories, ranged from moderate to poor. The multidimensional contributions of temporal and social contexts on the attitudes of caregivers about feeding practices were examined. The older the participant the more relaxed approach to what and when a baby ate. The pattern of association of social context and parental value was different for participants who were African American and those who were white. Results are discussed in the light of possible factors that contribute to caregivers' ideas about their young child with special needs and feeding issues. It is suggested that these thoughts might frame how the caregiver responds to feeding intervention suggestions.

[Prevalence and co-occurrence of five types of ill-treatment in relation with depression and conduct disorder in adolescent mothers]

In this article, the authors reflect on co-occurrence of different types of maltreatment that adolescent mothers have suffered during their childhood in order to better understand intergenerational transmission of maltreatment. They underline that studies on maltreatment that adults or adolescents have been subjected to during their childhood generally do not take into account co-occurrence of different types of maltreatment. The authors first attempt to verify if adolescent mothers are different from women of the general population in regards to prevalence and co-occurrence of various types of maltreatment suffered during their own development. They then try to establish prevalence and co-occurrence of types of maltreatment in relation to diagnoses of major depression or conduct disorder in adolescent mothers.

Perceived stress, social support, and affectionate behaviors of adolescent mothers with infants in neonatal intensive care

INTRODUCTION

This article focuses on affectionate behaviors of adolescent mothers with their infants in a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU). Hypotheses derived from behavioral science theory posited the direct influence of social support and perceived stress on affectionate behaviors, the statistical interaction of social support and perceived stress on affectionate behaviors, and perceived stress as a mediator of the relationship between social support and affectionate behaviors.

METHOD

Subjects were enrolled from July 1993 through September 1994. Information about perceived stress and social support was obtained twice by means of an interview. Affectionate behaviors were measured by NICU nurse observations. Analyses were conducted on subsamples ranging from 57 to 107 subjects.

RESULTS

All hypotheses were rejected. Neither social supports nor perceived stress were related to affectionate behaviors, and no statistical interactions among the 3 variables were identified.

DISCUSSION

The findings are considered in the context of the methodology used, stress and social support theory, and implications for practice and future research.

Social support, knowledge of infant development, and maternal confidence among adolescent and adult mothers

OBJECTIVE

To explore the influence of social support and knowledge of infant development on maternal confidence in performing infant care tasks among adolescents and adults.

DESIGN

Descriptive, exploratory.

SETTING

A large urban teaching hospital in the midwestern United States.

PARTICIPANTS

116 adolescent mothers (ages 13 to 19 years); 101 adult mothers (ages 20 to 41 years).

MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES

Adult mothers reported higher levels of knowledge about infant development than did adolescent mothers. For both adolescent and adult mothers, social support and knowledge of infant development were significantly correlated with confidence in providing infant care. For adolescents, knowledge of infant development explained 15% of the variance in maternal confidence scores, and the number of people in the adolescent's household explained an additional 5%. For adults, parity explained 10%, social support explained 9%, and knowledge of infant development explained 4% of the variance in maternal confidence scores.

CONCLUSIONS

An adolescent's knowledge of infant development significantly affects her confidence in providing infant care. Given the learning needs of new mothers and the time constraints for in-hospital postpartum teaching, nurses may need to adjust content and teaching methods for all new mothers, but especially to meet the needs of adolescent mothers.