Securing attachment: The shifting medicalisation of attachment and attachment disorders

'I don't want him to always be so far behind': Parental perceptions of child independence in the context of extreme prematurity; a qualitative study

This study addresses the paucity of research on parents of extremely preterm adolescents (born <27 weeks of gestation) and their experiences within the framework of parental determinism. We conducted semi-structured interviews with twenty-two mothers and one father. Data were analysed thematically, revealing three overarching themes and eight subthemes shaping parental accounts. These themes centred on parental ambitions for their children, their perceptions of their child's abilities, and the parenting behaviours employed to support parental aspirations. Parents' actions were influenced by their ambitions and the belief that they could impact their child's future independence. While some parents adopted 'trusting', non-intensive parenting behaviours, those anticipating challenges for their child's future independence resorted to intensive parenting practices. These findings align with the concept of parental determinism, emphasising the perceived causal link between present parental actions and future child outcomes. In the context of extreme prematurity, a nuanced understanding of parental perceptions regarding their child's future independence aligned with a delicate balance between hope and realistic aspiration is crucial for enhancing parental support and well-being.

Insights into paediatric tube feeding dependence: A Speech-language pathology perspective

Purpose: To explore possible factors contributing to paediatric tube feeding dependency from the speech-language pathology perspective. Tube feeding dependency can have serious repercussions for children and their families with failed or slow weaning/transitioning from tube to oral feeding, more likely after the age of five.Method: A mixed methods approach was conducted. During the first quantitative phase, an online national survey of speech-language pathologists (SLPs) from the health and non-health sectors was carried out followed by interviews with a subset of the respondents. Forty-three SLPs completed the survey. In the second qualitative phase, 10 participants from the survey were interviewed in depth as to their opinions about why tube dependency occurs. Survey data from phase one were analysed using descriptive statistics and chi square comparisons. Interview data were categorised using thematic analysis. Findings from both methodologies were combined to report the results.Result: Two interlinking meta-themes were identified from the combined data sets. These were: (1) Medicalisation of tube fed children in infancy as a root cause of tube feeding dependency and (2) Fragmentation of the tube fed child's continuity of care. The specific results indicated several possible reasons for tube feeding dependency including medical emphasis on weight gain, prolonged nasogastric tube feeding and waiting too long for transition from tube to oral feeding. A lack of integrated care and clinician confidence in non-health settings also appeared to be a factor contributing to tube feeding dependency.Conclusion: Early and ongoing biomedical focus on weight gain affected long-term goals for transitioning leading, subsequently, to tube feeding becoming normalised by school age.

Engaging with motherhood and parenthood: A commentary on the social science drugs literature

The majority of qualitative social scientific research on the topic of parenthood and substance use focuses on mothers who use illicit drugs and their experiences of social marginalization and stigmatization. This commentary argues that new and important insights might be gained about parenting in the context of substance use by engaging more closely with everyday experiences of mothering and with contemporary theorising around motherhood and parenthood. Drawing on recent sociological studies of family life influenced by late-modern individualism and by new expert attention on the quality of parent-child relationships, the commentary proposes directions for future social research on the identities and experiences of mothers and fathers who use alcohol and other drugs.

'Love builds brains': representations of attachment and children's brain development in parenting education material

A focus on early brain development has come to dominate expert child rearing advice over the past two decades. Recent scholars have noted a reinvigoration of the concept of attachment in this advice and changes in the ways that attachment is framed and understood. The extent to which the concept of attachment is drawn on, the way it is framed, and the consequences for mothers, families and parent-child relationships is examined through a discursive analysis of a current Canadian parental education campaign. Findings support the argument that attachment is receiving a great deal of attention in brain-based parenting education programmes as children's emotional development becomes increasingly prioritized. Attachment is presented as needing to be actively and continually built through expert-guided empathetic and responsive parental behaviour, and is framed as crucial for the development of brain pathways that promote emotional strength and self-regulation in children. Attachment-building is also presented as requiring highly intensive parenting that falls overwhelmingly to mothers. The parent-child relationship that is envisioned is one that is instrumental, lacking in affect and conducive to the creation of ideal self-regulating neo-liberal citizens.

Nurturing an Alien Pregnancy: Surrogate Mothers, Intended Parents and Disembodied Relationships

In India where a large number of Indian women, primarily from poor and disadvantaged economic sections, are willing to gestate a pregnancy for an infertile couple in exchange for compensation—the meaning of pregnancy is completely different. Navigating circumstances and relationships are not only strange for Indian surrogates but also for foreign as well as Indian couples who enter into the transnational commercial gestational surrogacy arrangement. Here the notion of risk is seen in the ‘disembodied relationships’ of couples and surrogates trying to nurture an alien pregnancy—alien for the surrogate due to her status as a non-claimant, and alien to the couple because it is housed in the body of another. Experiences culled from interviews with couples, surrogates and their relatives point towards how ‘risk’ is felt and played out in the care and nurturance of the pregnancy.