The impact of attending a psycho-educational antenatal group on the observed parent-infant relationship
Year: 2013
Type: dissertation
Abstract: The important implications of the attachment relationship have led researchers to \nconsider what the precursors to a secure attachment relationship are. Ainsworth, Bell, \nand Stayton (1971) proposed that maternal sensitivity was the fundamental trait in \ndeveloping a secure attachment relationship. However, recent research has identified \nthat mind-mindedness; the tendency of a parent to treat their infant as an individual \nwith a mind (Meins, Fernyhough, Fradley & Tuckey, 2001), is a better predictor of \nparent infant attachment than maternal sensitivity. \nThis study explored the impact of a new antenatal intervention called Baby World on \nthe subsequent mind-mindedness of participants as well as its impact on the parent \ninfant relationship. Participants who had attended the Baby World class and standard \nNHS antenatal classes (intervention group, N=21) were compared to those who had \nonly attended standard NHS antenatal classes (control group, N=19). The study also \nexplored whether planned pregnancies led to more mind-mindedness than unplanned \npregnancies; whether emotional and physical wellbeing in pregnancy predicted mindmindedness \nand if there was any concordance between couples mind-mindedness. \nResults showed that participants in the intervention group used significantly more \nappropriate mind-minded comments than those in the control group. The intervention \ngroup also scored significantly higher than the control group on the Absence of \nHostility subscale of the Maternal Postnatal Attachment Scale (MPAS, Condon & \nCorkindale, 1998). There was a non-significant trend of the intervention group scoring \nhigher than the control group on the overall MPAS score as well as the Pleasure in \nInteraction subscale of the MPAS. The results also illustrated that emotional and \nphysical wellbeing in pregnancy did not predict mind-mindedness and no concordance \nbetween couples mind-mindedness was found. Theoretical explanations of these \nfindings are presented and the clinical implications and future research are discussed.
Author: Andrew Parkinson
Language: English
Subfield: Social Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W261730148