Pregnancy acceptance first step to bonding

COLUMBIA, Mo., July 25 (UPI) -- Researchers at the University of Missouri-Columbia have found pregnancy acceptance to be the first step in forming the mother/child bond.

Jean Ispa and her colleagues studied the link between how accepting mothers were of being pregnant and their toddlers' security of attachment. In the study, 173 young, low-income black mothers, who either were pregnant or had delivered within the past 11 months, were questioned regarding their feelings about pregnancy. When children were about age 1, their attachment security to their mothers was assessed.

The study, published in the Journal of Marriage and Family, found that mothers who were not accepting of their pregnancies had a greater tendency to later feel that parenting was burdensome.

Ispa noted that her other research indicates that most mothers, even those whose pregnancies were unintended, enjoy their children. She also pointed out that while pregnancy acceptance predicted feelings that parenting was burdensome, it did not predict the degree to which mothers said they enjoyed interacting with their children or the level of warmth observed in their interactions.

Apparently, mothers were able to separate their feelings about being trapped by the responsibilities imposed by childrearing from their feelings about their toddlers.