The quality of early interactions in preterm infants’ mothers and fathers: the influence of birth weight

Preterm birth may impair the quality of early parent-infant interactions. While the literature focused on mothers, paternal interactive behaviors have not been adequately investigated until now. The main aim of the study was to deepen the role of parent’s gender on the quality of early parent- preterm infant interactions, also considering the effect of severity of prematurity based on infant birth weight. 92 preterms’ parents (54 mothers and 38 fathers) and their babies were recruited. According to infant birth weight, 69 dyads were included into Very Low Birth Weight (VLBW) and 23 into Extremely Low Birth Weight (ELBW) group. At 3 months of infant corrected age, 4 minutes of play interaction were recorded and coded by Child-Adult Relationship Experimental Index. Analyses showed that mother- and father-interactions were overall adequate, with no significant differences on parental sensitivity and infant cooperative scores. However, in case of non sensitive behaviors, significant differences between parents were found, with higher maternal control and higher paternal unresponsiveness. When infant scales were considered, high levels of passivity during the interactions with fathers compared the ones with mothers emerged. Nevertheless, compliant and passive scales mean scores did not differ between groups. Finally, the analyses failed to find a significant effect on interactive patterns according to severity of birth weight nor to the interaction between parent gender and severity of birth weight. The study suggest that preterm birth could have a strong influence on parenting style, where the need to respond to a vulnerable baby leads mothers to enhance the stimulations to infants and fathers to decrease them. Moreover, the effect of prematurity seem to be no significant when parent gender is considered. Further investigation will help to better understand the relation between parent gender, birth weight and quality of interactions