Poster #219 - Positive Parenting Effects of the Building Strong Families Program for Mothers of Unwanted Pregnancies

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Social Policy

Integrative Statement

Conducted as part of the Healthy Marriage Initiative under the Administration for Children and Families (ACF), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Building Strong Families (BSF) evaluation randomly assigned unmarried parents to receive relationship skills education. The evaluation showed the BSF program to have little or no impact on relationship outcomes (e.g., marriage) across all research sites calling into question further investment in such programs (Wood, Moore, Clarkwest, & Killewald, 2014; Wood, McConnell, Moore, Clarkwest, & Hsueh, 2012). On the other hand, research does identify a reduction in depressive symptoms for program couples suggesting possible impacts on general parental and family well-being (Wood et al., 2012). It is important to know whether there are impacts of the BSF program for unmarried parents beyond the explicit goals of the program and the Healthy Marriage Initiative.

One way to explore unidentified impacts is to examine at-risk groups within the BSF sample. Given the growing rate of unintended pregnancies and births within the United States (Meyer & Carlson, 2014; Finer & Zolna, 2014), unwed mothers who report that their pregnancies were unintended are one group of interest. Past research has shown that unintended pregnancy is predictive of postpartum depressive symptoms (Leathers & Kelley; Cheng, Schwarz, Douglas, & Horon, 2009; Rich-Edwards, Kleinman, Abrams, Harlow, McLaughlin, Joffe & Gillman, 2006) and parenting stress (Claridge & Chaviano, 2013) which can spillover to negatively affect parenting domains (Logan, Holcombe, Manlove, & Ryan, 2007). As such, the current study examines whether assignment to the BSF program would be beneficial for women who reported that their pregnancies were unwanted.

Our analytic sample included baseline and age 3 data from the BSF evaluation (n = 3,470). We examine moderation of associations between unintended pregnancy (mother retrospectively reported that pregnancy was unwanted at the child’s birth) and two measures of parenting behaviors (engagement in 4 parenting activities and whether or not spanked child in past month) at age 3. We conduct models separately for mothers who were cohabiting with the child’s biological father and mothers who were single at child’s birth. Multiple imputation with chained equations was conducted to address missingness. All models controlled for maternal demographics and included fixed effects for the 8 BSF program sites.

Results from moderation analyses reveal that assignment to a BSF Program altered associations between unwanted pregnancy and engagement in parenting and spanking behaviors. For cohabiting mothers’ engagement in parenting, the interaction between unwanted pregnancy and assignment to the BSF program was statistically significant (β=0.277,p<0.05). As shown in Figure 1, there was no negative link between cohabiting mother’s unwanted pregnancy and engagement in parenting in the treatment group, whereas there was a negative link in the control group. The interaction between single mother’s unwanted pregnancy and assignment to the BSF program was associated with reduced odds in spanking within the past month (β=0.531,p<0.05) (Figure 2). Findings suggest relationship building programs are able to influence parenting behaviors for unwed mothers of unwanted pregnancies. Future research is needed to understand mechanisms behind these identified associations.

Authors

• Marisa Rose Morin, Teachers College Columbia University
  Presenting Author

• Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, Columbia University Teachers College
  Non-Presenting Author