This project encompasses three studies dealing with the development of nurturant responses to infants. The first study investigates what parents teach pre-school age children about care for the young during the course of play with dolls. It examines whether mothers and fathers communicate differential expectations for boys and for girls regarding nurturing infants. Two additional questions are whether mothers foster stronger nurturant expectations than fathers, and whether fathers differentiate their expectations for male and female children more strongly than mothers do. Data collection has been completed; preliminary analyses suggest relatively strong differences in parental expectations for male and female children, but differences between maternal and paternal behavior were not striking. The second study tests whether a specific psychological stress, previous pregnancy loss (miscarriage, stillbirth, or neonatal death), contributes toward anxiety and depression during a subsequent pregnancy or a dysfunctional adaptation in the postpartum period. Two groups of expectant parents are studied longitudinally, one in which there was a previous pregnancy loss and a second group of first-time expectant parents. Data collection has been completed for the early phases, but a follow-up assessment 16 months is still in progress. Among the innovative procedures developed for this study was a measure of grief, called the Perinatal Bereavement Scale. Preliminary findings emphasize more serious psychological sequeli associated with late loss. The third study is concerned with the mother's emotional state during pregnancy, her reactivity to infant cries that show varying degrees of aversiveness, and the unique individuality of her infant as factors that collectively influence the parent-infant relationship in the first year of life. First- time expectant mothers and their spouses are studied during the pregnancy; infants from these pregnancies are studied aeonatally, and follow-up studies of parents and infants are conducted at 3, 9 and 12 months. Non-pregnant women also were studied as a control group. The study employs multiple levels of measurement, including observational, self-report, and physiological indices. Data collection is in progress at the 9 and 12 month phases. Preliminary findings from the cry reactivity procedure indicate that pregnancy status attenuates physiological reactivity to cries of differing aversiveness in spite of clear-cut subjective awareness of differences.
