Parent Domain Research Articles

Assessment of level and source of stress in mothers of newborns admitted to neonatal intensive care unit in tertiary care hospital

Background: The hospitalization of a neonate is stressful for the mother and all family members Severe stress can affect mother–baby relationship and thus affect newborn development subsequently. The parent-infant bonding process during the newborn period establishes the foundation a lifelong relationship. This process is affected when the newborn spends the first several weeks in NICU. Quantifying stress levels of parents and identifying environmental stressor is useful in assisting the health personnel in improving the quality of medical care. To study the level and source of stress in mothers of Newborns admitted in the Neonatal intensive care unit and to quantify the stress levels by parental stressor scale. Methods: In this cross-sectional study included 400 mothers of newborn babies admitted in NICU of Basaveshwar Hospital and Sangameshwar hospital attached to Mahadevappa Rampure Medical College, Kalaburgi with semi structured validated interview-based questionnaire consisting of parenteral stressor scale: NICU (PSS: NICU) comprising three subscales and questions related to maternal and neonatal characteristics will be used. Results: Among the study population the mean stress score was maximum in parental role domain of PSS: NICU stress scale. The maternal stress was higher among preterm and non-breast-fed babies in looks and behaviour and parental role. Maternal stress was statistically significant among rural, illiterate and home maker participants in all 3 domains. Conclusions: NICU mothers are under significant stress and appropriate counselling targeted towards specific stressors is required and before designing remediation programs for parents, local demography and the predominant NICU stressors need to be kept in mind. maternal stress, neonatal intensive care unit environment, baby looks and behaves.

Gritty Parenting: The Development and Validation of the Parental Grit Scale.

In this study, we aimed to expand the domain specificity of grit by exploring it in the realm of parenting. Parental grit was defined as parents' inclination to demonstrate perseverance, sustained passion, and adaptability in pursuing long-term parenting goals. With longitudinal data from 1,373 U.S. parents, we developed and validated the Parental Grit Scale (PGS) in three phases: item development and revision, establishment of factor structure, and examination of criterion-related and incremental validity. The PGS exhibited a three-factor structure and (partial) scalar measurement invariance across genders, the status of the child's special needs, and measurement occasions. The PGS demonstrated moderate temporal stability. We found evidence of its validity in predicting parental emotional exhaustion, self-efficacy, autonomy support, and parents' perceptions of children's school well-being. Parental grit explained variance in these outcomes beyond domain-general grit and conscientiousness. The PGS has sound psychometric properties and is a valuable measure in the parenting domain.

Effect of an Educational Program on the Stress level Among Mothers of Neonates Hospitalized in Neonatal Intensive Care Units

Background: Mothers encounter significant psychological distress resulting from the premature birth of their infants, coupled with the need of hospitalization in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), which necessitates prolonged separation from their familial support systems. Aim: to assess the effect of an educational program on the stress level among mothers of neonates hospitalized in neonatal intensive care units. Methods: A quasi-experimental design was undertaken involving 44 mothers of neonates who were admitted to the Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) at the Children's Hospital and the Maternity & Gynecological Hospital. Researchers used maternal stress scale. Results: Mean score of studied mothers related Sights and sounds domain at preintervention was 24.97 (5.32), while decrease to 15.23 (3.60) postintervention. Also, according to looks and behavior domain mean score was 23.04 (3.90) preintervention, while decrease to 13.61 (2.76) post intervention. Additionally, according to Parental role alteration domain mean score was 26.82 (4.10) preintervention, while decrease to 16.70 (2.34) post intervention. Conclusion: Less than fifty percent of the mothers analyzed exhibited elevated levels of stress prior to the intervention, with approximately one-third demonstrating moderate stress levels. Conversely, following the intervention, less than two-thirds of the participants reported low stress levels, while over one-quarter indicated moderate stress levels. Furthermore, an educational intervention has been demonstrated to reduce maternal stress across various domains, including the auditory and visual realms, the observational and behavioral dimensions, the modifications in parental roles, as well as the overall stress levels experienced by mothers. Recommendations: The formulation of an educational framework aimed at mothers of preterm neonates who have been admitted to the neonatal intensive care unit is essential. It is imperative to furnish parents with psychological empowerment training initiatives designed to facilitate the adoption of proactive coping methodologies to navigate adversities during periods of crisis.

Parental emotion socialization and parent-child attachment security: A meta-analytic review.

Although parental sensitivity is an established determinant of children's attachment security, effect sizes are modest, suggesting other aspects of parenting that might support secure attachment. Parental emotion socialization (ES) has been proposed as a parenting domain that is theoretically linked to secure parent-child attachment. The goal of this meta-analysis was to evaluate the strength of the relations between parental ES and attachment security in children under the age of 18. We conducted three meta-analyses assessing the links of supportive parental ES, nonsupportive parental ES, and parental elaboration with attachment security assessed with behavioral, representational, and questionnaire measures (ks = 9-11 samples; Ns = 576-1,763 participants). The relation between supportive ES and security was significant but very small (r = .06). The relation between nonsupportive ES and security was not significant (r = -.05). Parental elaboration emerged as a key correlate of secure attachment, with a medium effect size (r = .24), similar to the relation between sensitivity and attachment security. The findings underscore the need for further research to elaborate on the role of ES in the development of attachment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Risk Scores for Five Early Life Domains and Odds of Obesity and Hypertension Comorbidity

Abstract Background For outcomes such as obesity and hypertension, determinants are likely to be complex and multidimensional. Therefore, to design realistic interventions, epidemiological research should incorporate information from multiple risk exposure domains to assess the effect on health. In this paper we explore risk scores for five early life domains and odds of obesity and hypertension comorbidity. Methods We used data from 17,196 participants in the 1970 British Cohort Study. The outcome was obesity (BMI of ≥ 30) and hypertension (blood pressure>140/90mm Hg or self-reported doctor’s diagnosis) comorbidity at age 46. Early life domains included: ‘prenatal, antenatal, neonatal and birth’, ‘developmental attributes and behaviour’, ‘child education and academic ability’, ‘socioeconomic factors’ and ‘parental and family environment’. Stepwise backward elimination selected variables for inclusion for each domain. Predicted risk scores of obesity and hypertension for each cohort member within each domain were calculated. Logistic regression investigated the association between domain-specific risk scores and odds of obesity-hypertension, controlling for demographic factors and other domains. Results In unadjusted models, higher domain-specific risk scores were associated with increased odds of obesity-hypertension comorbidity. In adjusted analyses, higher domain-specific risk scores remained associated with increased odds of obesity-hypertension comorbidity, with the strongest associations to the parental and family environment domain (OR1.11 95%CI 1.05-1.18) and the socioeconomic factors domain (OR1.11 95%CI 1.05-1.17). Conclusions Appropriate modelling choices of combined effects of early-life risk factors need to be explored and tested. Targeted prevention interventions aimed at population groups with shared early-life characteristics could have an impact on cardiovascular risk in adulthood. Key messages • Targeted prevention interventions aimed at population groups with shared early-life characteristics could have an impact on obesity-hypertension prevalence. • Appropriate modelling choices of combined effects of early-life risk factors need to be explored and tested.

Parental burnout assessment: Validation in Indonesian parents

ObjectiveIn the last fifteen years, there has been a growing global focus on parental burnout due to its negative impact on parents, partners, and children. The Parental Burnout Assessment (PBA) is the established measurement to assess parental burnout and has been validated in various languages. Nevertheless, the Indonesian version of PBA is not available. The present study validated the Parental Burnout Assessment (PBA) in Indonesian parents. MethodsData were analyzed with 679 Indonesian parents (mothers= 593, fathers= 86) aged 22–66 (mean= 38.07, SD= 7.91). Participants were recruited through social media. ResultsConfirmatory Factor Analysis confirmed a good fit of data confirming the original four-factor model (CFA (χ2 (679=959.553, df=212, p = .000; CFI=0.93; GFI=0.894; RMSEA= 0.072; CI=0.067; 0.077; SRMR = 0.05; TLI= 0.917). Results revealed good internal consistency for the overall score (α = 0.93) and its dimensions (emotional exhausted= 0.86; contrast= 0.86; feeling of being fed up= 0.89), except for emotional distancing (α = 0.53). The Indonesian version of PBA also revealed good psychometric properties for construct validity, with measures of emotional well-being, parenting stress, and aloneliness (rpositive affect= -0.58; rnegative affect= 0.60; rparental stress= 0.64; raloneliness= 0.59). ConclusionThe results support its relevance for assessing parental burnout among Indonesian-speaking parents, offering new opportunities for cross-cultural research and clinical diagnosis in the parenting domain. Our research confirms the reliability and validity of the Indonesian adaptation of the Parental Burnout Assessment (PBA-ID). These findings underscore the relevance of the PBA-ID within the Indonesian setting, offering significant implications for mental health assessment and intervention strategies.

Why does perceived parenting in adolescence predict maladaptive personality in adulthood? Evidence for substantial genetic mediation.

Why is parenting in adolescence predictive of maladaptive personality in adulthood? This study sets out to investigate environmental and genetic factors underlying the association between parenting and maladaptive personality longitudinally in a large sample of twins. The present study addressed this question via a longitudinal study focused on two cohorts of twins assessed on aspects of perceived parenting (parent- and adolescent-reported) at age 14 years (n =1,094 pairs). Participants were followed to adulthood, and maladaptive personality traits were self-reported using the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 (PID-5) at age 24 or 34 years. We then modeled these data using a bivariate biometric model, decomposing parenting-maladaptive personality associations into additive genetic, shared environmental, and nonshared environmental factors. Numerous domains of adolescent-reported parenting predicted adult maladaptive personality. Further, we found evidence for substantial additive genetic (r a ranging from 0.22 to 0.55) and (to a lesser extent) nonshared environmental factors (r e ranging from 0.10 to 0.15) that accounted for the association between perceived parenting reported in adolescence and adult personality. Perceived parenting in adolescence and maladaptive personality in adulthood may be related due to some of the same genetic factors contributing to both phenotypes at different developmental periods.

Homogenization of quasi-periodic conformal architectured materials and applications to chiral lattices

In this study, we propose to extend asymptotic periodic homogenization for non-periodic continuous microstructured media, assuming that the non-periodic geometry (called quasi-periodic) can be designed by a conformal planar transformation of a periodic parent domain architectured media with periodically disposed unit cells. Conformal transformations are shown to play a privileged role in the design of circular macroscopic heterogeneous domains tessellated with non-periodic unit cells, obtained from a periodic parent domain architectured with these unit cells. The conditions for conformal invariance are established, leading to the general form of conformal transformation in their dependencies upon the periodic coordinates. It is shown that any conformal map can be decomposed into the product of an isotropic dilatation function of the first periodic spatial position of decreasing exponential type and a rotation characterized by an angular function linear in the second periodic position. A general theory of quasi-periodic homogenization in the framework of conformal transformations is established for the first time, leading to an expression of the tensor of quasi-periodic moduli which is fully evaluated from the solution of the elasticity boundary value problem posed over the periodic unit cell. The influence of microcurvature distortion of individual unit cells on their effective properties is evaluated. Closed-form solutions are confronted to numerical examples issued from the implementation of circular periodicity in a finite element solver, showing overall a good agreement with the identified homogenized moduli.

Dimensions of parenting during infancy: Testing a latent bifactor model

AbstractIn the current paper, we examined the dimensional structure of parenting using a bifactor model of observed parenting domains during infancy. We validated our parenting dimensions by examining correlations with indicators of family well‐being and child development. Data come from a longitudinal cohort that recruited a diverse sample of mothers (56.5% White) and their newborn child (50.7% males). Parenting was assessed using multiple indicators at an average of 18 months (N = 397). Bifactor modelling revealed a general latent dimension of sensitivity and two unique dimensions indexing emotional input and cognitive input. We found a pattern of shared and unique correlations of the three parenting dimensions with family and child well‐being. The most robust correlations were with the general sensitivity dimension, which we argue cuts across parentings behaviors and is fundamental to development.

Analysis of changing behavioral patterns in student parent domain using Reinforcement Learning and Machine Learning methods to predict Psychological Disorders

This study takes a critical look at the opportunities and difficulties faced by students in higher education who are moving from adolescence to young adulthood (18 to 25 years old). It integrates interdisciplinary viewpoints from psychology, education, and public health to comprehend and promote students' behavioral well-being. The identification of behavioral patterns, risk factors for scholastic challenges, mental health issues, and novel approaches such as machine learning for early intervention are among the main subjects. K-means, KNN, Clustering, Reinforcement learning, Actor-Critic Method, Multi Linear Regression, and Q-Learning are among the algorithms used. Keywords: Interdisciplinary perspectives, Psychology, Public health, K-Means, KNN, Clustering, Multi Linear Regression Reinforcement learning, Actor-Critic-Method, and Q-Learning.

Pillar Mothers: Perspective on the Adaptation Process of Mothers of Autistic Children

Mothers of autistic children encounter numerous daily challenges that can affect their adaptation. While many studies have documented the impact on mothers of having an autistic child and factors contributing to their adaptation and their experiences of motherhood, few have examined how mothers of autistic children perceive their overall adaptation. We investigated with a qualitative design how mothers of autistic children perceive stressors, facilitators (resources, coping strategies, and contexts), and outcomes of adaptation in various life domains. Participants included 17 mothers of autistic children ranging from 2 to 8 years old. Mothers participated in a phone interview about their perception of their successes, challenges, and adaptation as mothers of their children. A thematic analysis was conducted on interview transcripts using inductive and deductive coding. A cross-case analysis was subsequently used to identify themes and subthemes. Results highlight the complexity of the maternal adaptation process in the context of autism, which starts before the child’s diagnosis. Stressors, facilitators, and outcomes were described as overlapping in the psychological, social, professional, marital, and parental life domains. The accumulation of stressors was identified as mothers of autistic children’s main source of stress and almost impossible to reduce. Participants explained having difficulties accessing effective facilitators. While outcomes of adaptation vary across mothers and life domains, indicators of distress were identified for all participants. Implications are discussed regarding how service providers and society could better support mothers of autistic children by considering their complex reality and by providing more resources and information.

Variability in adolescent reception of parental support: Testing the domain-matching hypothesis.

The present study investigated matches and mismatches between adolescent and parent socialization domains (i.e., protection, guidance) as related to adolescent reception of parental support during a laboratory-based social evaluation challenge. Participants were 80 early adolescents (Mage = 12.36 years, SD = 1.33, 55% males, 55% Black, 42.5% White, and 2.5% other races or ethnicities) and one parent or guardian per adolescent. Observational measures of parent socialization domains assessed sensitivity to adolescents' thoughts and feelings (protection domain) and prosocial behavioral advice (guidance domain). Measures of parallel adolescent socialization domains included self-reported discomfort during a social evaluation challenge (protection domain) and desire to continue the social evaluation challenge (guidance domain). Adolescent reception of parental support was assessed using an observational measure of adolescent attentiveness and responsiveness to the parent during a parent-adolescent discussion about how to approach the social evaluation challenge. Analyses of interactions between measures of parent and adolescent socialization domains revealed: (a) higher levels of adolescent-reported discomfort during the social evaluation challenge interfered with their reception of parental prosocial behavioral advice but did not enhance their reception of parental sensitivity, and (b) higher levels of adolescent-reported desire to continue the social evaluation challenge interfered with their reception of parental sensitivity but did not enhance their reception of parental prosocial behavioral advice. This study advances socialization research by identifying conditions under which adolescents are more and less receptive to supportive communication from parents. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Healthcare entrepreneurship: An integrative framework for future research

Healthcare entrepreneurship is of growing interest, but the area of research is not well defined and is disparate across disciplines. We take an integrative approach to examine the similarities and differences between the literature for the two parent domains (healthcare management and entrepreneurship). We present findings from an interdisciplinary four-phase Delphi study and propose a new framework to guide future research. Our proposed healthcare entrepreneurship framework not only reflects variations in key factors, such as actors, activities, processes and outcomes within the parent disciplines, but also suggests gaps, connections and future opportunities for research. Actionable summary and highlightsSince COVID-19, there has been an influx of healthcare entrepreneurial ventures, but, within a volatile market, mixed success. We find that healthcare entrepreneurship is different from work in healthcare or entrepreneurship alone. For healthcare entrepreneurs to achieve their targeted health outcomes as well as their operational and profitability outcomes, all stakeholders need to work together. For the clinician-turned-entrepreneur and the serial entrepreneur now in healthcare, we provide three actionable insights to address some of the practical challenges in healthcare entrepreneurship.1.We advise that venture teams include individuals from both entrepreneurship and healthcare backgrounds to shorten the learning curve, particularly as they develop the evidence base for the offering. Contacting entrepreneurship accelerators or university tech transfer and commercialization offices for which one may have had previous affiliations can be one approach to securing such team members.2.Healthcare entrepreneurs should consider how to include end-user or patient participation to create new healthcare solutions. Working with relevant patient advocacy groups can be one approach and may help to increase the relevance and patient-centeredness of the solution.3.Healthcare entrepreneurs may need to develop new business models and revenue streams. While healthcare is a human right, it requires financing to sustain offerings. One may strengthen one's “business and calling” mindset via joining healthcare entrepreneurship organizations for medical professionals, accelerators, and other local programs that support such entrepreneurial engagement in healthcare.In addition to these insights for healthcare entrepreneurs, we include practical insights for other key actors. Corporations may incentivize partnerships that normalize co-produced innovations. Venture capitalists might develop novel funding mechanisms linked to non-traditional outcomes. Non-profit organizations can serve as interdisciplinary conveners to raise awareness of healthcare entrepreneurship needs. Policy makers might consider ways to create business environments with competitive, yet reasonable, cost and pricing structures.

The Integrated Family Approach in Mental Health Care Services: A Study of Risk Factors.

Parental mental disorders in families are frequently accompanied with other problems. These include family life, the development of children, and the social and economic environment. Mental health services often focus treatments on the individual being referred, with little attention to parenting, the family, child development, and environmental factors. This is despite the fact that there is substantial evidence to suggest that the children of these parents are at increased risk of developing a mental disorder throughout the course of their lives. Young children are particularly vulnerable to environmental influences given the level of dependency in this stage of development. The main objective of this study was to identify whether there were a complexity of problems and risks in a clinical sample of patients and their young children (0-6) in mental health care, and, if so, whether this complexity was reflected in the integrated treatment given. The data were collected for 26 risk factors, based on the literature, and then subdivided into the parental, child, family, and environmental domains. The data were obtained from the electronic case files of 100 patients at an adult mental health service and the corresponding 100 electronic case files of their infants at a child mental health service. The findings evidenced a notable accumulation of risk factors within families, with a mean number of 8.43 (SD 3.2) risk factors. Almost all of the families had at least four risk factors, more than half of them had between six and ten risk factors, and a quarter of them had between eleven and sixteen risk factors. Furthermore, two-thirds of the families had at least one risk factor in each of the four domains. More than half of the families received support from at least two organizations in addition to the involvement of adult and child mental health services, which is also an indication of the presence of cumulative problems. This study of a clinical sample shows clearly that the mental disorder among most of the patients, who were all parents of young children, was only one of the problems they had to deal with. The cumulation of risk factors-especially in the family domain-increased the risk of the intergenerational transmission of mental disorders. To prevent these parents and their young children being caught up in this intergenerational cycle, a broad assessment is needed. In addition, malleable risk factors should be addressed in treatment and in close collaboration with other services.

Adverse childhood experiences among black sexually minoritized men and Black transgender women in Chicago

BackgroundAdverse childhood experiences (ACE) are important predictors of mental health outcomes in adulthood. However, commonly used ACE measures such as the Behavioural Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) have not been validated among Black sexually minoritized men (SMM) nor transgender women (TW), whom are known to have higher rates of ACE and poorer mental health outcomes. Assessing the psychometric properties of the measure is important for health equity research, as measurements that are not valid for some populations will render uninterpretable results.MethodsData are drawn from the Neighborhoods and Networks (N2) study, a longitudinal cohort of Black SMM and TW living in Southern Chicago. We conducted confirmatory factor analysis, correlation analysis and a two-parameter Item Response Theory (IRT) on the BRFSS ACE measure, an 11-item measure with 8 domains of ACE.ResultsOne hundred forty seven participants (85% cisgender male) completed the BRFSS ACE measurement in the N2 study with age ranges from 16–34. The cohort were from a low socioeconomic background: about 40% of the cohort were housing insecure and made than $10,000 or less annually. They also have a high number of ACEs; 34% had endorsed 4 or more ACE domains. The three-factor structure fit the BRFSS ACE measure best; the measurement consisted of three subscales: of “Household Dysfunction”, “Emotional / Physical”, and “Sexual Abuse” (CFI = 0.975, TLI = 0.967, and RMSEA = 0.051). When the 8 domains of ACE were summed to one score, the total score was is correlated with depressive symptoms and anxiety scores, establishing concurrent validity. Item Response Theory model indicated that the “parental separation” domain had a low discrimination (slope) parameter, suggesting that this domain does not distinguish well between those with and without high ACE.ConclusionsThe BRFFS ACE measure had adequate reliability, a well-replicated structure and some moderate evidence of concurrent validity among Black SMM and TW. The parental separation domain does not discriminate between those with high and low ACE experiences in this population. With changing population demographics and trends in marriage, further examination of this item beyond the current study is warranted to improve health equity research for all.

A multimesh finite element method for integral nonlocal elasticity using mesh-decoupling technique

This study presents a generalized multimesh nonlocal finite element method (M2-FEM) that addresses several long-standing challenges in the numerical simulation of Eringen’s integral elasticity theories, often used to model nonlocal effects. The major challenges in the numerical simulation of integral boundary value problems are primarily rooted in the coupling of the spatial discretization of the global (parent) and integral (child) domains, which severely restricts both the applicability and the computational efficiency of existing algorithms by imposing an implicit trade-off between the accuracy of the child domain and the resources required by the overall parent domain. One of the defining contributions of this study consists in the development of a mesh-decoupling technique that generates isolated sets of meshes such that the parent and child domains can be discretized and approximated independently. This mesh-decoupling has multi-fold advantages on the simulation of integral theories such that, when compared to existing state-of-the-art techniques, the proposed algorithm achieves a greater ability to adopt generalized integral kernel functions, the ability to handle non-regular (non-rectangular) domains via unstructured meshing, and simultaneously better numerical accuracy and efficiency (hence allowing greater flexibility in both mesh size and computational cost trade-off decisions). Both benchmark studies and several case studies are conducted to assess the effectiveness of M2-FEM. Simulation results confirm that M2-FEM can accurately simulate integral nonlocal problems and demonstrate its multi-fold computational advantages over existing mesh-coupling-based nonlocal finite element methods. Overall, the proposed M2-FEM algorithm is very general and it can be applied to a variety of integral theories, even beyond nonlocal elasticity.

Racial discrimination and parenting perceptions among low-income Black couples.

Racism affects Black individuals in the United States through multiple institutional, social, and economic injustices. Relationship scientists have called for greater attention to the potentially harmful effects racism might exert on Black families. A small literature has begun to document negative associations between experiences of racism and romantic relationship functioning. However, even less empirical work has focused on a central relationship domain for many Black couples: parenting. The present study used cross-sectional data (N = 312 couples) from low-income Black couples who had recently had a child together. We examined associations between both partners' experiences of racial discrimination and their coparenting relationship quality and parenting stress. We next controlled for depression and relationship dedication as substantive covariates that could guide future research in this area. Actor-partner interdependence models revealed actor associations between discrimination and poorer parenting outcomes and a partner association specifically between one's partner's discrimination experience and own lower coparenting relationship quality. This partner effect was no longer significant, and actor effects were attenuated, when controlling for depression and relationship dedication, respectively. Our findings indicate that the negative effects of racial discrimination on Black couples' relationships are also apparent in the parenting domain, even above and beyond associations of individual depression and relationship dedication. These findings underscore the urgent need for more basic science to better understand the harms of racism for Black families, identify mechanisms that drive those effects, and highlight ways that clinical services can begin to address these impacts even now. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Processes and Statuses of Parental Identity at Different Stages of Parenthood

ABSTRACT The study aimed to verify whether parents at different stages of parenthood differ in the intensity of three identity processes in the parental domain: commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment. We also examined whether there were differences between men and women in this context. We jointly analyzed results from seven independent cross-sectional samples examined between 2017 and 2022 in Poland. A total of 5454 parents aged 18 to 59 participated in the studies at different stages of parenthood: up to 3 years after becoming a parent, being a parent for 4 to 7 years, being a parent for 8 to 12 years, being a parent for 13 to 20 years and being a parent for 21 years or more. Parents at different stages of parenthood were found to have significantly different levels of in-depth exploration and reconsideration of commitment. The results suggest that in the first years of parenthood, parents experience a relatively high in-depth exploration and reconsideration of commitment, which may decrease over time. The analyses also indicated that women are characterized by higher levels of in-depth exploration than men at each stage of parenthood. Men, on the other hand, experience stronger identity uncertainty related to the parental role.

Parental Stress, Infant Feeding and Well-being in Families Affected by Cleft Lip and/or Cleft Palate: The Impact of Early Follow-up.

To document the impact of early follow-up by specialized cleft nurses (SCNs) provided to families affected by cleft lip and/or palate (CL/P) and the status of parental stress, infant feeding and well-being. Prospective inclusion of a control group, which only received standard care, followed by an intervention group that also received early SCN follow-up. The cleft lip and palate team at Oslo University Hospital, Norway. Seventy families (69 mothers and 57 fathers) distributed into an intervention group (n = 32) and a control group (n = 38). SCNs provided a consultation at the maternity ward and a follow-up conversation by phone or face-to-face at scheduled times for six months. Parental Stress Index (PSI), Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-14), feeding questionnaire, survey of infant diets, weight percentiles. The mothers reported higher stress scores than the fathers, but in the control group only in the PSI parent domain at T2 and T3 (P = .007, P = .018). Infants in the intervention group used pacifiers less frequently than in the control group (55.2% vs. 81.1%, P = .023). Otherwise, no significant differences were found between the groups. Overall, the infants received less breast milk than norms. Contextual strategies for early follow-up of families affected by clefts need to be developed, with an emphasis on involving fathers and those parents reporting elevated stress and/or feeding difficulties. There is a need for diagnosis-specific guidelines about the use of pacifiers as well as collaboration between the health professionals involved to increase breastmilk feeding.

Attachment-based Prevention Program Involving Mothers and Fathers: Seven-year Post-Intervention Outcomes of a Randomized Control Trial

The effects of a holistic attachment-based primary prevention program (SAFE), which is aimed at fathers and mothers during the transition to parenthood, were assessed over the 7-year post-intervention follow-up of a randomized control trial. A non-clinical German sample was included in the trial (fathers: n = 58, mothers: n = 71; children: n = 72). The children’s mean age was 7.30 years (SD = 0.41) and their attachment representations were assessed using a doll play procedure. Among the group of insecure mothers (n = 58), significantly more children (50%) in the SAFE group displayed a secure attachment representation compared to the control group (25%). No children of mothers with unresolved trauma displayed a disorganized attachment representation. In the parent domain, the increase in couple discord over time perceived by the SAFE mothers was significantly lower than that for the mothers in the control group. Furthermore, mothers in the SAFE group reported significantly higher partnership quality than the control mothers. The perceived benefits of the programs were significantly higher, in multiple domains, among SAFE fathers and mothers compared to control parents. The effect sizes were medium to large. Even after 7 years, program participation continues to have a positive impact on the children, and their fathers and mothers. The most important implication of this study for clinical practice is the need to support mothers with insecure or unresolved trauma in order to promote healthy child development. In addition, we think that it is important to support both parents during the transition to parenthood. TRN: DRKS00017050 (retrospectively registered, March, 28th 2019)