An Attachment Antenatal Group for Adolescent Parents Version 1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
The Effect of an Attachment Focused Antenatal Group on the Adolescent Parent-Infant Relationship
IRAS ID
138159
Contact name
Tejinder Kondel
Contact email
Research summary
The United Kingdom has the highest rate of teenage pregnancy in Western Europe (Bonell, 2004). Research suggests that children born to adolescent mothers are more likely to have an insecure attachment (Borkowski et al., 2002; Figueiredo, Bifulco, Pacheco, Costa, & Magarinho, 2006) and are at higher risk of experiencing abuse (Buchholz & Korn-Bursztyn, 1993). Parenting by adolescents has been found to be less sensitive, offer less verbal stimulation and be more cohesive than older mothers (Borkowski, et al., 2002; Jaffee, Caspi, Moffitt, Belsky, & Silva, 2001). \n\nThe government has shown increasing recognition of the importance of intervening early in the parent-infant relationship particularly at the antenatal stage (Allen, 2011). Despite this, research into antenatal interventions in Britain is still lacking especially with an adolescent population. \n\nMind-mindedness is the ability of the mother to “treat her infant as an individual with a mind” (Meins, et al., 2001). Research has indicated that mind-mindedness is associated with infant attachment security (Meins et al, 2001). Demers et al (2010) compared the quality of mind-mindedness interactions of adolescent mothers to adult mothers. They found adolescent mothers used almost no positive mind-minded comments in their interactions. This suggests adolescent mothers may benefit from an intervention focused on mind-minded infant interactions. \n\nCasale, (2011) and a follow-up study by Parkingson (2012) investigated the impact of a psycho-educational attachment based antenatal class on the parent-infant relationship. The results indicated that the intervention changed the caregiver’s perspective of their interactions with their infant. The intervention group showed significantly lower levels of hostility and increased mind-mindedness comments in their interactions with their infants. \n\nThe purpose of this study would be to investigate the impact of the psycho-educational attachment based antenatal class, used by Casale (2011) and Parkinson (2012), on adolescent parents interactions with their infants.
REC name
East of England - Cambridgeshire and Hertfordshire Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
13/EE/0305
Date of REC Opinion
24 Oct 2013
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion