A Prenatal Intervention to Enhance Parenting Knowledge of Parents with Lower Incomes.

• In Event: Poster Session 06
  In Poster Session: PS 06 Topic - Prevention and Interventions

Abstract

Increasing parents’ knowledge about infant development and parenting skills is of paramount importance for healthy child development (Bornstein, Cote, Haynes, Hahn & Park, 2010; Winter, Morawska & Sanders, 2011). Parenting knowledge refers to parents’ understanding of developmental milestones and norms, knowledge of appropriate caregiving practices, and skills to promote adaptive development (Bornstein et al., 2010; Huang, O’Brien, Genevro & Miller, 2005). Researchers have found that parenting knowledge is related to warm and sensitive caregiving practices, cognitions about parenting (e.g., spoiling), and creating an environment that promotes healthy child development. On average, low-income, younger, and less educated parents have less knowledge about child development and parenting, placing them at higher risk for poorer child outcomes.
The current pilot study tested the effectiveness of a second-trimester prenatal intervention, focused, in part, on enhancing parent knowledge of child development. Forty-six racially and ethnically diverse mothers and fathers in low-income households, all expecting their first child, were assigned to either a control group or an intervention group. Parents in the intervention group participated in a 6-week, couple-based program designed to reduce prenatal stress and enhance parental knowledge. The intervention was offered through a community-based, family support program, and taught by trained program staff, establishing a sustainable delivery system. Parents completed the shortened version of the Infant Development Inventory (MacPhee, 1984) was used to assess parents’ knowledge at three times: pre-intervention (12 to 18 weeks of gestation), post-intervention (18 to 24 weeks of gestation), and after childbirth (4 weeks post-birth).
Findings revealed that both mothers and fathers in the intervention group reported an increase in parenting knowledge from pre- to post-intervention compared to parents in the control group F(1, 25) = 12.89, p = .001. At the third time point, the post-birth follow-up, mothers, but not fathers, in the intervention group still had trend-level significantly more parent knowledge than controls F(1, 21) = 3.35, p = .082. Follow-up analyses were conducted to explore specific items that assessed parents’ beliefs about spoiling their infants. Results revealed that mothers in the intervention group showed an improvement in knowledge about spoiling, by more often accurately disagreeing with the statement: “a baby should not be held when s/he is crying because this will make him/her want to be held all the time” (F(1, 25) = 3.78, p = .063). Meanwhile, fathers in the intervention group also improved in their parenting knowledge; specifically, they more often correctly disagreed with the statement: “the more you soothe your crying baby by holding and talking to it, the more you spoil him/her” (F(1, 25) = 3.17, p = .087).
Increasing parents’ knowledge about how to respond sensitively to infant distress has been linked to less harsh parenting and less child abuse; thus, our intervention that enhanced parent knowledge prior to birth could play a significant role in building strong parent-child attachment and supporting healthy child development. Due to the limited sample size, findings should be interpreted with caution, but provide crucial preliminary evidence for developing an NIH R34 to further evaluate our intervention.

Authors

• Diego Barcala-Delgado, University of Massachusetts Amherst
  Presenting Author

• Rachel Herman, Brown University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Christina Albina Rowley, University of Massachusetts Amherst
  Non-Presenting Author

• Alexandrea L. Craft, Brown University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Maureen A Perry-Jenkins, University of Massachusetts Amherst
  Non-Presenting Author

• Marsha Kline Pruett, Smith College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Robert Straus
  Non-Presenting Author

• Nancy Byatt, UMass Memorial Medical Center
  Non-Presenting Author