Mothers Only (mother + only)

Distribution by Scientific Domains


Selected Abstracts


The Link Between Couples' Pregnancy Intentions And Behavior: Does It Matter Who Is Asked?

PERSPECTIVES ON SEXUAL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH, Issue 4 2008
Maureen R. Waller
CONTEXT:,Previous studies have linked pregnancy intentions with some pregnancy-related behaviors and infant health outcomes. However, most have used only women's reports of intentions and examined only maternal behaviors. METHODS:,Baseline data from the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study (1998,2000) are used to examine whether parents of newborns considered abortion upon learning of the pregnancy and whether this measure of pregnancy intention is associated with their behaviors during pregnancy or with infant birth weight. Associations between outcomes and each parent's pregnancy intention are explored with multivariate probit regressions or least squares regressions for 737 married and 2,366 unmarried couples. RESULTS:,If at least one parent considered abortion, unmarried mothers had a significantly reduced probability of initiating early prenatal care, and unmarried fathers had a significantly reduced probability of providing cash or in-kind support during the pregnancy. The proportion of mothers receiving care in the first trimester was 12 percentage points lower when the mother only or both parents considered abortion than when neither parent did; depending on which parent reported on fathers' support during pregnancy, the proportion of fathers who provided cash or in-kind assistance was 6,10 percentage points lower when the father only considered abortion and 6,14 points lower when both parents considered abortion than when neither did. CONCLUSIONS:,Future research on pregnancy intentions should incorporate both men and women. Understanding men's pregnancy intentions and their associations with early support of mothers may inform discussions of how to encourage men's involvement in family planning, prenatal health care and parenting. [source]


The influence of family environment and child temperament on work/family role strain for mothers and fathers

INFANT AND CHILD DEVELOPMENT, Issue 5 2003
Marceline Lee
Abstract This study examined the additive effect of structural variables, child characteristics, and the family environment on mothers' and fathers' work/family role strain. Differences between mothers and fathers on these variables were also examined. The sample consisted of 36 dualearner families whose children had been in daycare from infancy through 4 years of age. Structural variables included work schedules and time spent with child for mothers only, fathers only, and both parents together with child. Child characteristics included temperament and health. Family environment variables included different components of the family environment (conflict, cohesion, expressiveness, organization, and control) and parenting daily hassles. Results showed that mothers' time with child and caregiving for child were greater than fathers'. Mothers reported more expressiveness in the family and more daily hassles with children than fathers. Mothers' level of role strain was also significantly higher than fathers'. For mothers, role strain was associated with hours away from home, child sociability, family conflict, and daily hassles resulting in an R2 of 0.57. Fathers' role strain was associated with family expressiveness, organization, and their wives' daily hassles resulting in an R2 of 0.37. Data suggest that mothers' and fathers' role strain may be driven by somewhat different factors. For women, aspects of the family and the child and work hours accounted for a considerable portion of the variance while for men, only aspects of the family environment were associated with their level of role strain. Copyright © 2003 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]


Discrepancies in Perceptions of Maternal Aggression: Implications for Children of Methadone-Maintained Mothers

AMERICAN JOURNAL OF ORTHOPSYCHIATRY, Issue 3 2010
Jessica L. Borelli
Despite a long history of documenting discrepancies in parent and child reports of parental care and child psychopathology, it has only been in recent years that researchers have begun to consider these discrepancies as meaningful indicators of parent,child relationship quality and as predictors of long-term child adjustment. Discrepancies in perceptions of parenting may be particularly important for the children of mothers with a history of substance abuse who may be less aware of the impact of their behavior on their child and of their child's internalizing symptoms. This study examined associations between (a) mother,child discrepancies in reports of maternal aggression, and (b) mother and child reports of child internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Data collected from 99 mother,child dyads (with children 4,16 years of age) during the baseline phase of a randomized clinical trial testing a parenting intervention were used in this study. Measures included parent and child versions of the Parental Acceptance,Rejection Questionnaire and the Behavioral Assessment Scale for Children. Findings indicated that as children viewed their mothers as increasingly more aggressive than mothers viewed themselves, children reported more internalizing and externalizing symptoms but mothers only reported more child externalizing symptoms. Mother,child discrepancies in reports of parenting behavior have potentially meaningful implications for child emotional and behavioral problems. [source]


Parents' perspectives on coping with Duchenne muscular dystrophy

CHILD: CARE, HEALTH AND DEVELOPMENT, Issue 4 2005
C. L. Webb
Abstract Background, The author, who has a grown son with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy (DMD), has personally experienced a lack of available information for parents about coping with DMD. Therefore, as a longtime personal goal, she developed this study to address that lack of information. Methods, Fifteen semi-structured interviews were conducted with 23 parents (n = 7 with both parents; n = 1 with two sisters; n = 6 with mothers only; n = 1 with father only). The purpose of the interviews was to examine the strategies parents use to cope when their sons have DMD. The interviews were conducted in 12 states, taped and transcribed. Results, Grounded theory analysis of the interview data indicated the willingness of these parents to share information to empower others like themselves. Conclusions, Parents want to be heard and valued as experts on DMD by medical and other professionals who interact with their sons. In addition, they want to proactively participate in their sons' lives and to encourage other parents to do the same. [source]