All in the Family: How Parity Affects Maternal Attachment

• In Event: Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

The transition to first-time parenthood is accompanied by considerable stress (Morse et al., 2000). At the same time, upon the birth of a child, parents are introduced to a significant attachment figure. Although parents’ tendency to form attachment bonds is universal, the quality of attachment varies (Bowlby, 1969). The impact that parity has on parental attachment has not been thoroughly explored. It is possible that parental attachment may differ between first-born children and later-born children. As part of a larger study on parent-to-child attachment, parity differences in parent attachment, parent stress, and infant temperament were examined.

Parents of children who were less than one year old participated in an online survey study examining the factors that impact parent-child attachment during the child’s first year. The final dataset consisted of 198 mothers (64 primiparous and 134 multiparous; parent age: M=31.24 years, SD = 4.56 years; child age: M=6.35 months, SD = 3.54 months).

Participants completed a series of measures, starting with the Maternal Postnatal Attachment Questionnaire (MPA; Condon, 2015), used to assess parent–to-child attachment during the first year of life. The MPA includes an overall scale score (𝛂=0.855), and four subscales: Quality of Attachment (𝛂=0.687), Absence of Hostility (𝛂=0.581), and Pleasure in Interaction (𝛂=0.713). Following this, participants completed the very short form of the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ-VSF; Putnam et al., 2014), measuring the frequency of their child’s behaviors in the past week. Scale items load onto three factors: Positive Affectivity/Surgency (PAS; 𝛂=0.816), Negative Emotionality (NEG; 𝛂=0.808), and Orienting and Regulatory Capacity (ORC; 𝛂=0.715). Parents also completed the Parent Stress Index (PSI‐SF; Abidin, 1995; 𝛂=0.905) which includes 36 items divided into three subscales: Parental Distress (PD; 𝛂=0.859), Parent–Child Dysfunctional Interaction (PCDI; 𝛂=0.84), and Difficult Child (DC; 𝛂=0.845).

Independent-samples t-tests were used to determine whether there were differences in these measures based on parity (Table 1). There were no differences in infant temperament characteristics between maternal parity groups. As expected, there was more stress surrounding the child’s behaviors (i.e., Difficult Child Stress) reported for the primiparous mothers in the first year of their child’s life. Primiparous mothers also reported a lower quality of attachment compared to multiparous mothers (but overall attachment scores were not different). However, the pleasure in interacting was higher for the primiparous parents.

Findings from this study suggest that first-time parents are more stressed about their child’s difficult behaviors and have a poorer quality of attachment compared to more experienced parents, and yet, new parents report more pleasure when interacting with their children, perhaps because they do not have to split their attention upon multiple children. It is noteworthy that mothers’ perceptions of infant temperament do not differ by parity, yet perceptions of parent stress concerning child behaviors did. Differences in parenting confidence may explain this and will be incorporated into this presentation once reliability is verified. Further, longitudinal designs are needed to consider how the developing parent-child bond changes over time.

Authors

• Sarah M Sanborn, Clemson University
  Presenting Author

• Hallie Lemalefant, Clemson University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Sophie Caruso, Clemson University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Erin Doege, Clemson University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Ansley Davis, Clemson University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Natalie Guggino, Clemson University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jennifer Bailey Grandits, Clemson University
  Non-Presenting Author