Consistency of maternal cognitions and principles across the first five months following preterm and term deliveries
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Authors
Winstanley, Alice
Sperotto, RG
Putnick, DL
Cherian, S
Bornstein, MH
Gattis, M
Publication Date
2014-10-30Journal Title
Infant Behavior & Development
ISSN
0163-6383
Publisher
Elsevier
Volume
37
Pages
760-771
Language
English
Type
Article
Metadata
Show full item recordCitation
Winstanley, A., Sperotto, R., Putnick, D., Cherian, S., Bornstein, M., & Gattis, M. (2014). Consistency of maternal cognitions and principles across the first five months following preterm and term deliveries. Infant Behavior & Development, 37 760-771. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2014.09.005
Abstract
The aims of this study were to examine and compare the development of parenting cognitions and principles in mothers following preterm and term deliveries. Parenting cognitions about child development, including thinking that is restricted to single causes and single outcomes (categorical thinking) and thinking that takes into account multiple perspectives (perspectivist thinking), have been shown to relate to child outcomes. Parenting principles about using routines (structure) or infant cues (attunement) to guide daily caregiving have been shown to relate to caregiving practices. We investigated the continuity and stability of parenting cognitions and principles in the days following birth to 5 months postpartum for mothers of infants born term and preterm. All parenting cognitions were stable across time. Categorical thinking increased at a group level across time in mothers of preterm, but not term, infants. Perspectivist thinking increased at a group level for first-time mothers (regardless of birth status) and tended to be lower in mothers of preterm infants. Structure at birth did not predict later structure (and so was unstable) in mothers of preterm, but not term, infants and neither group changed in mean level across time. Attunement was consistent across time in both groups of mothers. These results indicate that prematurity has multiple, diverse effects on parenting beliefs, which may in turn influence maternal behavior and child outcomes.
Keywords
Parenting, Prematurity, Principles, Cognitions, Caregiving, Infancy
Sponsorship
Alice Winstanley was supported by a National Institutes of Health–Wellcome Trust four-year PhD studentship (084911/Z/08/Z), and Rebecca Sperotto was supported by a PhD studentship from the Waterloo Foundation and School of Psychology, Cardiff University. Diane L. Putnick and Marc H. Bornstein were supported by the intramural program of the NIH, NICHD.
Identifiers
External DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2014.09.005
This record's URL: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/246414
Rights
Attribution 2.0 UK: England & Wales
Licence URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/uk/
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