German Title: Prä- und Postnatales mütterliches Verhalten im Kontext der Regulation von Säuglingen

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Abstract

Following the notion that parenting starts with pregnancy (Glover & Capron, 2017), the current dissertation investigated how early parenting is shaped and how it relates to infant regulation, thereby taking a longitudinal perspective. Based on a systematic review and the data from the longitudinal study, the Bremen Initiative to Foster Early Childhood Development (BRISE) on the development of socially and/or culturally disadvantaged families, this dissertation focuses on two main research questions: (1) How does parenting emerge and develop from pregnancy to early infancy? (2) How are early parenting and infant regulation related? The first publication provides a systematic literature review of 107 studies in total. It summarizes what is already known about the relation between parenting and infant regulation in the first two years of life. Corresponding analyses suggested that semi-structured measures seem best suitable to measure infant regulation during the first year and that structured measures seem better at probing self-regulation in older children. Parental reports were less likely to capture the positive relation between parental behavior and infant regulation when compared to structured and semi-structured methods. Most studies assessed the predictive role of parental behavior on infant regulation and revealed a stronger association than vice versa. Directions for future research were discussed by means of the shortcomings of the studies included in the systematic review, such as the need to examine the role of negative parenting, considering the role of fathers, and taking into account demographic information. The second publication focused on the emergence of parenthood longitudinally. More specifically, (a) the development of maternal self-efficacy - a precursor of early parenting - was investigated from pregnancy to the postnatal period, and (b) the role of demographic factors together with formal and informal support during pregnancy were studied in their predictive value for maternal self-efficacy three months after birth. Results revealed that maternal self-efficacy increased rapidly from the prenatal to the postnatal period. Mothers with previous birth experience, lower levels of education, those who were born outside of Germany, as well as mothers with higher levels of formal and informal social support during pregnancy all showed higher levels of maternal self-efficacy three months after birth. Moreover, first-time mothers and mothers born in Germany benefited more from formal support than mothers with previous experience and mothers born outside of Germany. These findings underline the need for early intervention programs for expectant mothers during the prenatal phase. Lastly, the third publication focused on the postnatal period, examining the influence of maternal self-efficacy at three months after birth on infant regulation at three and seven months, and the role of maternal soothing behavior in order to explain this relationship. Infant crying and sleeping behavior, as well as parental close and distant soothing strategies were of special interest. Findings indicated that (a) infant regulatory behavior was quite stable across measurement points; (b) mothers with higher self-efficacy regarding parenting used more close soothing strategies, and that (c) soothing strategies directly influenced and maternal self-efficacy indirectly influenced infant crying and sleeping behaviors. These findings point out that sensitive and adequate parental practices promote better infant regulation in terms of crying and sleeping. Altogether, the studies revealed positive associations between early parental practices and infant regulation during the first two years of life, thus underscoring the need to support mothers as early as possible, especially mothers from socially and/or culturally disadvantaged populations.