Mothers' Experiences (mother + experience)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


Parental failure in captive cotton-top tamarins (Saguinus Oedipus)

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PRIMATOLOGY, Issue 3 2001
Massimo Bardi
Abstract Several New World monkey species experience high rates of infant mortality in captivity, and parental failure in the form of infant neglect and abuse is often regarded as one of the leading causes of this problem. We explored a large archival database to assess environmental, familial, and biological variables identified as significant for parental success in previous studies of captive tamarins, through several generations and across several dozen pedigrees. Using a stepwise multiple regression analysis we developed a model including the fewest variables able to identify statistically significant predictors of infant outcome. We found that seven independent variables could predict infant outcome in the colony. The most important appeared to be the presence of helpers with whom parents could share infant carrying. Mother's experience and litter size were two other variables that contributed to a significant extent to explaining parental failure. Moreover, the model showed that there is a measurable contribution to infant outcome due to the health status of both parents. Finally, we found a distinct role for mothers and fathers, and that parental failure follows different patterns for abuse and rejection. Am. J. Primatol. 54:159,169, 2001. © 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [source]


Mothers' Experience of Helping Young Adults With Traumatic Brain Injury

JOURNAL OF NURSING SCHOLARSHIP, Issue 1 2005
Suporn Wongvatunyu
Purpose:To describe mothers' experience of helping young adults with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Design:Descriptive. Methods:A convenience sample of participants from support groups for parents of young adults with TBI met the criteria of engaging in regular interaction or helping their children (aged 20 to 36 years). These young adults had suffered moderate or severe TBI from a motor vehicle collisions, sports-related injuries, or recreation-related injuries more than 6 months earlier. A descriptive phenomenological method was used. Three in-depth interviews were done with each mother over a 2-month period. Data were the mothers' perceptions, actions, and intentions pertaining to their experiences of helping the young adults. Findings:Five phenomena that were structures of the experience were discerned, discussed with participants to obtain their feedback, and compared to the relevant literature. The five phenomena of the mothers' experiences were: reconnecting my child's brain, considering my child's safety, making our lives as normal as possible, dealing with our biggest problem, and advocating for my child. Conclusions:The mothers continued rehabilitation efforts with the young adults, even when only minimal services were available to support their efforts. Mothers needed interventions to enhance their knowledge, and they and the young adults with TBI needed expanded community services. [source]


Balancing Expectations for Employability and Family Responsibilities While on Social Assistance: Low-Income Mothers' Experiences in Three Canadian Provinces,

FAMILY RELATIONS, Issue 5 2007
Amber Gazso
Abstract: Drawing upon a discourse analysis of public-use policy documents and qualitative interview data, this paper explores how mothers on social assistance in three Canadian provinces balance actual or expected policy expectations of their employability (e.g., participation in welfare-to-work programming) with their caregiving responsibilities. The results suggest that mothers' experiences of a time crunch, overload, and interference varied depending on their employability status and that they often experienced work-family conflict in ways similar to that experienced by working mothers not on assistance. The policy implications of these findings are discussed. [source]


A comparison of mothers' and fathers' experiences of the attachment process in a neonatal intensive care unit

JOURNAL OF CLINICAL NURSING, Issue 6 2008
Liv Fegran RN
Aim., To compare mothers' and fathers' individual views and experiences of the attachment process in a neonatal intensive care unit within the first week after a premature birth. Background., The attachment between parents and children is a precursor to the consolidation of parenting skills, the growth and development of the infant and the establishment of a bond between parent and child. Premature birth and the resultant hospitalization disrupt the normal attachment process between parent and child. Most of the litteraure on attachment theory focuses on the mother,child connection and is being criticised for regarding the father's role as supportive and peripheral. Methods., The design of this study was descriptive with a hermeneutic approach. Twelve parents (six mothers and six fathers) in a 13-bed neonatal intensive care unit in a Norwegian regional hospital participated in a field study addressing the encounter between parents and nurses. This paper is based on the semi-structured interviews with the parents at discharge. Results., The interview analysis revealed two main categories. (a) Taken by surprise: For mothers, the premature birth created a feeling of powerlessness and they experienced the immediate postnatal period as surreal and strange. The fathers experienced the birth as a shock, but were ready to be involved immediately. (b) Building a relationship: Mothers experienced a need to regain the temporarily lost relationship with their child, whereas the fathers experienced the beginning of a new relationship. Conclusion., Comparing parents' experiences of the attachment process within the first days after a premature birth reveals a striking contrast between the mother's experience of surrealism and the father's ability to be involved immediately after birth. Relevance to clinical practice., Parents' of premature children's different starting points should be acknowledged as professionals encourage parents to have early skin-to-skin contact with their premature infant. [source]


Epigenetic effects of infection on the phenotype of host offspring: parasites reaching across host generations

OIKOS, Issue 3 2008
Robert Poulin
Parasite-induced changes in host phenotype are now well-documented from a wide range of taxa. There is a growing body of evidence indicating that parasites can also have trans-generational consequences, with infection of a host leading to changes in the phenotype of its offspring, though the latter are not parasitised. Several proximate mechanisms have been put forward to explain these ,maternal' effects, most involving hormonal or other physiological pathways, ultimately leading to offspring that are pre-adapted to the parasites they are most likely to encounter based on their mother's experience. Here, we propose that all these trans-generational effects on offspring phenotype must involve epigenetic phenomena. Epigenetics concerns the appearance and inheritance of seemingly new phenotypic traits without changes in the underlying DNA sequence. Since diet and other environmental factors experienced by a mother can affect gene expression in her offspring by turning genes ,on' or ,off' (for example, via DNA methylation), why couldn't parasites do it? Although epigenetic effects have not been explicitly invoked to account for trans-generational impacts of parasites on the phenotype of host offspring, the existing evidence is fully compatible with their involvement. We argue that epigenetic mechanisms must play a central role; we also discuss their evolutionary implications and suggest questions for future investigations in this new and exciting research direction. [source]


Effects of stress and social support on postpartum health of Chinese mothers in the United States,

RESEARCH IN NURSING & HEALTH, Issue 6 2009
Ching-Yu Cheng
Abstract Postpartum maternal well being across cultures has received limited research attention. We examined relationships among stress, social support, and health in 152 Chinese mothers <1 year postpartum in the United States. These mothers did not perceive high levels of stress, although they did not receive as much support as they indicated they needed; 23.7% of mothers scored high for depressive symptoms. About half of the mothers experienced interrupted sleep, decrease in memory, and lack of sexual desire. All health measures were inter-correlated. Social support moderated the effects of stress on depressive symptoms. Culturally relevant care that is perceived as supportive may promote postpartum maternal health. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Res Nurs Health 32:582,591, 2009 [source]


Mothers who were severely abused during childhood and their children talk about emotions: Co-construction of narratives in light of maternal trauma

INFANT MENTAL HEALTH JOURNAL, Issue 4 2004
Nina Koren-Karie
The article focuses on detailed examination of the co-construction of emotion dialogues between mothers and their 6-year-old children in light of mothers' experiences of being sexually, physically, and emotionally abused during childhood. We present examples from dialogues between 3 mothers and their children about emotional events experienced by the children and illustrate emotionally mismatched co-construction processes. To better understand these difficulties, the article also provides vignettes from interviews with mothers about children's inner worlds and show how examining the interviews may help explain the unfolding of the dialogues and particularly points of difficulty. The dialogues between the mothers and their children were assessed using the Autobiographical Emotional Events Dialogue procedure (Koren-Karie, Oppenheim, Chaimovich, & Etzion-Carasso, 2000). The maternal interviews were obtained using the Insightfulness Assessment procedure (Oppenheim & Koren-Karie, 2002). The discussion focuses on the significance of mother,child dialogues in shaping children's inner world, and points to the importance of providing intervention for adults who experienced childhood traumas that address not only their own personal issues but also their functioning as parents. [source]


Giving voice to the burden of blame: A feminist study of mothers' experiences of mother blaming

INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF NURSING PRACTICE, Issue 4 2004
Debra Jackson RN BHSc(Nsg) MN(Ed) PhD
Mother blaming has been identified as a pervasive and serious problem and it is known that the professional literature has strong and entrenched mother-blaming messages. Using a feminist approach, this paper explores mother blaming as it has been experienced by a group of mothers themselves. Analysis of narrative exposes mother blaming as a burden that complicates the already-complex responsibilities that comprise mothering. Health providers are among those identified by women as being particularly likely to attribute problems with (even grown) children to maternal fault. Implications for practice and research are drawn from the findings of this paper. [source]


Mothers' Experience of Helping Young Adults With Traumatic Brain Injury

JOURNAL OF NURSING SCHOLARSHIP, Issue 1 2005
Suporn Wongvatunyu
Purpose:To describe mothers' experience of helping young adults with traumatic brain injury (TBI). Design:Descriptive. Methods:A convenience sample of participants from support groups for parents of young adults with TBI met the criteria of engaging in regular interaction or helping their children (aged 20 to 36 years). These young adults had suffered moderate or severe TBI from a motor vehicle collisions, sports-related injuries, or recreation-related injuries more than 6 months earlier. A descriptive phenomenological method was used. Three in-depth interviews were done with each mother over a 2-month period. Data were the mothers' perceptions, actions, and intentions pertaining to their experiences of helping the young adults. Findings:Five phenomena that were structures of the experience were discerned, discussed with participants to obtain their feedback, and compared to the relevant literature. The five phenomena of the mothers' experiences were: reconnecting my child's brain, considering my child's safety, making our lives as normal as possible, dealing with our biggest problem, and advocating for my child. Conclusions:The mothers continued rehabilitation efforts with the young adults, even when only minimal services were available to support their efforts. Mothers needed interventions to enhance their knowledge, and they and the young adults with TBI needed expanded community services. [source]


Life with a new baby: How do immigrant and Australian-born women's experiences compare?

AUSTRALIAN AND NEW ZEALAND JOURNAL OF PUBLIC HEALTH, Issue 4 2010
Mridula Bandyopadhyay
Abstract Objective: Little is known about immigrant mothers' experiences of life with a new baby, apart from studies on maternal depression. Our objective was to compare the post-childbirth experiences of Australian-born and immigrant mothers from non-English speaking countries. Methods: A postal survey of recent mothers at six months postpartum in Victoria (August 2000 to February 2002), enabled comparison of experiences of life with a new baby for two groups of immigrant women: those born overseas in non-English-speaking countries who reported speaking English very well (n=460); and those born overseas in non-English-speaking countries who reported speaking English less than very well (n=184) and Australian-born women (n=9,796). Results: Immigrant women were more likely than Australian-born women to be breastfeeding at six months and were equally confident in caring for their baby and talking to health providers. No differences were found in anxiety or relationship problems with partners. However, compared with Australian-born women, immigrant mothers less proficient in English did have a higher prevalence of depression (28.8% vs 15%) and were more likely to report wanting more practical (65.2% vs 55.4%) and emotional (65.2% vs 44.1%) support. They were more likely to have no ,time out' from baby care (47% vs 28%) and to report feeling lonely and isolated (39% vs 17%). Conclusion and implications: Immigrant mothers less proficient in English appear to face significant additional challenges post-childbirth. Greater awareness of these challenges may help to improve the responsiveness of health and support services for women after birth. [source]