Development of attachment orientations in response to childbirth: A longitudinal dyadic perspective

Abstract

The aim of the current paper was to investigate the influence of childbirth on parents' attachment orientations. A three-wave longitudinal research program (during the second trimester of pregnancy, at 6months postpartum, and at 1year postpartum) using the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model with a hierarchical linear modeling was conducted on 150 parental couples (M=30.38years old) with parental group (i.e., primiparous/first-time or multiparous/multi-times parents) as a time-invariant predictor and the partner's attachment development as a time-varying covariate. Results showed that parents' attachment orientations were stable. Moreover, the members of a parental couple tended to follow the same attachment developmental trajectory. Variation in the partners' anxiety was positively associated with variation in the parents' anxiety and avoidance, while variation in the partners' avoidance was not associated with variation in the parents' anxiety and avoidance. The discussion underlined the stability of attachment orientations around childbirth and the importance of the dyadic perspective in understanding the childbirth experience, specifically the parents' receptivity to variation in their partners' anxiety levels and the influence of such variation on their own anxiety and avoidance development.