Delivering a premature baby is often associated with stress and worry because of its being unexpected. The family automatically worry for the mother and the newborn's safety. While the mother is concern with her baby's welfare.
There is nothing more troublesome for a mother than to think about her newborn inside an incubator with tubes. Children born earlier than their expected due dates are very vulnerable. With such condition, they require extra attention, especially during the neonatal period. Preterm babies are placed in incubator care and sometimes need breathing assistance.
This scenario can worsen the mother's condition given that most mothers go through postpartum depression after giving birth. In fact, previous research suggested that the stress, separation anxiety and higher chances of depression can impair a mother's ability to look after her child, which adversely affects the long term development of the preterm child.
However, a recent study from the University of Warwick does not support the findings of the previous research. The study revealed that the emotional roller coaster a mother is going through after giving birth to a preterm baby does not affect her parenting abilities, EurekAlert reports. Mothers who delivered preterm babies are as sensitive and interactive to their babies as mothers who deliver babies at term.
In another study, researchers analysed all the studies related to mother-child interactions with preterm children compared to children born at term in their first eight years. They examined 34 different studies and analyzed 3,905 children and mothers. However, there was not enough evidence to underestimate the parenting behavior of a mother due to delivering a preterm baby.
Ayten Bilgin, a researcher from University of Warwick and one of the authors of the study, said, "More than one in ten children are born preterm in the world. These findings are reassuring that regardless of mother's initial shock and stress, mothers of preterm children can provide the same sensitive parenting. There is no evidence for the speculation that parents of preterm children, on average, are less good in their parenting."
The same study revealed that even mothers going through a much tougher experience, like delivering a very preterm child or staying in the hospital for very long, remained to be as sensitive and responsive to their babies and other children.
The senior author of the study, Professor Dieter Wolk added, "This is a good message for parents of preterm children. However, recent findings indicate that preterm children might need even higher levels of maternal sensitivity and facilitation to achieve similar cognitive, behavioural outcomes to full-term children."
"There is a need to provide parents of preterm children the necessary assistance in parenting in the preschool and early school years for their children to develop at their full potential," Wolk added.
