Prenatal representations in pregnant women with different attachment patterns

1. Prenatal representations in pregnant women with different attachment patterns Transition to motherhood, beginning during pregnancy and lasting several months after the birth of the baby, is developmental crisis with marked reorganization of the mental world. It includes forming mental representations of the baby and of self-as-a-mother, a process which is at the peak during the second trimester of the pregnancy (Raphael-Leff, 1995; Schleske, 2007; Stern, 1995; Zeanah et al, 1985). The „building material“ for the representational world is made of interactive experiences within attachment relationships (Bowlby, 1988; Stern, 1995). Therefore, we expect that women with different attachment history, reflected in their current attachment pattern, manifest differences in positivity of the representations that are crucial for understanding the quality of the future mother-infant interaction. The main research question was: Do pregnant women with secure, fearful, preoccupied, and dismissing attachment patterns differ in positivity of prenatal representations of the child, self-as-a-mother, own mother-as-a-mother, and partner-as-a-father? Introduction Method Results and discussion Differences of four attachment patterns in prenatal representations Discussion and Conclusion High percentage of preoccupied attachment pattern may reflect the very nature of the developmental crisis in the period of pregnancy – activated attachment needs and proneness to anxiety coupled with more negative view of the self facing the challenges of birth and motherhood. Positivity of the representations found in this sample confirms that women tend to attribute lower scores to their mothers than to themselves (Ammaniti et al, 1992; Pajulo, Helenius & Mayes, 2006), and that their image of the child is overwhelmingly positive (Zeanah et al, 1985). Women with fearful attachment pattern may be under biggest risk for not resolving the crisis of the transition to motherhood and bringing the “ghosts” to the nursery – their unresolved childhood conflicts and traumatic memories (Fraiberg, Adelson, & Shapiro, 1975). Their perception of the baby may be distorted by their negative atributions; sensitivity to the signals of the baby weakened by their unrecognized and unmet attachment needs; their capacity to serve as regulators and as secure bases damaged by their proness to impulsive behavior. The results of the research support the use of UPIPAV-R as avalid and discriminative measure of attachment dimensions and a categorization tool. Ammaniti, M., Baumgartner, E., Candelori, C., Perucchini, P., Pola, M., Tambelli, R. & Zampino F. (1992). Representations and narratives during pregnancy. Infant Mental Health Journal, Vol. 13 (2), 167-182. Bowlby, J. (1988). A secure base. Clinical applications of attachment theory. London: Rutledge. Hanak, N. (2004). Construction of the new instrument for assessment of adult and adolescent attachment (Konstruisanje novog instrumenta za procenu afektivnog vezivanja kod odraslih i adolescenata – UPIPAV), Psihologija37, 123–141. Pajulo, M., Helenius H. & Mayes, L. (2006). Prenatal views of the baby and parenthood: Association with sociodemographic and pregnancy factors. Infant Mental Health Journal, 27 (3), 229-250. Raphael-Leff, J. (1995). Pregnancy. The Inside Story. Softcover edition. Northvale, New Jersey, London: Jason Aronson Inc Schleske, G. (2007). Schwangerschaftsphantasien von Müttern un ihre psychoanalytische Bedeutung für die frühe Mutter-Kind-Beziehung. U K. H. Brisch & T. Hellbrügge (Eds.) Die Anfänge der Eltern-Kind Bindung. Schwangerschaft, Geburt und Psychotherapie, (pp. 13–39). Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta. Stern, D. (1995). The motherhood constellation. A unified view of parent-infant psychotherapy. New York: Basic Books. Zeanah, C.H., Keener, M.A., Stewart, L. & Anders, T.A. (1985). Prenatal perception of infant personality: a preliminary investigation. Journal of the American Academy of Child Psychiatry, 24, 204-210. Sample 330 primiparae, age range 18-44 (M = 27,3), in 20-32 weeks of pregnancy (M = 26,5), 20% have risk pregnancy. Majority of them are married (86,1%), the others live unmarried together with the father of the child (12,7%), or seldom live without a partner (1,2%). Most of the women planned their pregnancy (81,5%). Instruments Attachment was assessed using the UPIPAV-R scale(Hanak, 2004), which measures seven aspects of attachment: Use of secure base, Anxiety about losing the secure base, Unresolved family traumatisation, Negative working model of self, Negative working model of others, Poor anger management, and Capacity for mentalization. Reliability of the subscales range from alpha = .71 to .87. Cluster analysis, k-means method, was used for discriminating among secure, fearful, preoccupied and dismissing attachment organization. The content of the representations was explored using the modified IRMAG adjectives list(Ammaniti et al, 1992) and the semantic differential method. Three identical lists of 12 opposite adjectives were given for rating the perceived individual characteristics of self-as-a-mother, own-mother-as-a-mother and partner-as-a-father. Another list of 11 opposite adjectives was used for rating the characteristics of the „imaginary child.“ Subjects made their ratings of the adjectives on the graphic scale divided into 10 segments. Here is one example: On the level of the whole group , the most positive are the representations of the child (M = 86.61; 11 items). Representations of the own mother are the most negative (M = 82.90), while representations of self-as-a-mother and partner-as-a-father are equally positive (M = 86.09 and 86.37, respectively). There are overall differences between attachment patterns on all four examined representations, with the secure pattern having the most positive and the fearful the most negative representations. hanakn@gmail.com Almost one third of the pregnant women were categorised as preoccupied, with above average anxiety about losing the secure base and negative models of self and others. The equal percentage (27%) of women belong to the secure and dismissing patterns. The lowest percentage (14%) of women were recognized as fearful, with the highest scores on the Unresolved family traumatisation, the poorest anger regulation and lowest scores on Use of the secure base. Profiles of attachment patterns on UPIPAV-R scales Nataša Hanak Faculty of Special Education and Rehabilitation University of Belgrade Results Contact Selected references