Sydney L. Hans

The aim of the current study is to explore factors associated with quality of parenting among women in treatment for opioid use disorders. 150 Black American women with 3–5 year old children were recruited through methadone treatment programs. Parenting representations were assessed through the Working Model of the Child Interview and parenting behavior through video recordings of mother–child interaction. Interviews were used to assess mothers’ history of violence exposure and to make DSM diagnoses. Mothers’ mood disorder was related to distorted representations and to expressions of concerned affect (anxiety, fear, guilt). Mothers’ personality disorder was related to expressions of negative affect (anger and frustration) and inversely related to sensitive parenting behavior. Mothers’ experience of family violence during childhood and partner violence during adulthood were related to concerned affect in their representations. Women in treatment for substance use disorder have complex and interconnected needs, including parenting supports and trauma-informed mental health services.

Although adolescent childbearing is widely viewed as a major social problem, and research suggests that young mothers and their children are at risk for poor economic and academic outcomes, these ideas may be in need of revision. Recent scholarship has pointed out that young mothers have been unfairly blamed and stigmatized for problems that should be attributed to social and economic inequality, racism, and poverty. The present study extends that research by listening to the voices of young mothers. In total, 179 urban African American women were asked at 4, 12, and 24 months after giving birth to describe how their lives had changed since becoming a mother. A team of coders content coded themes with rigorous checks for intercoder reliability. Positive themes were far more prevalent than negative themes. Motherhood was often described as a positive developmental change, providing the young women with a sense of maturity, responsibility, motivation, and commitment to placing the baby's needs ahead of their own. Motherhood was sometimes described as a life-turning point whereby young women turned away from undesirable activities and became focused on school, work, and their family's future. Challenges reflected common stresses of parenting for people of all ages, such as lack of sleep and burden of caregiving, but also limited time to socialize with friends. Findings suggest that although policymakers and professionals view adolescent parenthood as a social ill to be eradicated, for the mothers themselves, the experience is more complex, meaningful, and positive. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Reproductive justice advocates emphasize the rights of women to choose to have children, to decide the conditions under which they give birth, and to parent their children with support, safety, and dignity. This article examines what a reproductive justice perspective contributes to infant mental health work with teenage mothers and their families. It explores the historical framing of teenage pregnancy in which young mothers are the cause of a variety of social problems and in which the primary policy and practice approach is pregnancy prevention. The article offers alternative framings of teenage childbearing, based on reproductive justice principles, which focus on social conditions surrounding teenage parenthood and the meaning of motherhood in the lives of young women. These alternative frames shift the practice agenda to eradicating unjust social conditions and providing supports for young women in their roles as parents. The article then describes ways in which two infant mental health programs have incorporated reproductive justice principles into their work with young families: Chicago's community doula model and Florida's Young Parents Project for court‐involved teenage parents. Finally, the article extracts a set of principles deriving from a reproductive justice perspective that are relevant to infant mental health work with young families.

The article “Randomized Controlled Trial of Doula-Home-Visiting Services: Impact on Maternal and Infant Health”, written by Sydney L. Hans, Renee C. Edwards and Yudong Zhang, was originally published...

Introduction Although home-visiting programs typically engage families during pregnancy, few studies have examined maternal and child health outcomes during the antenatal and newborn period and fewer have demonstrated intervention impacts. Illinois has developed an innovative model in which programs utilizing evidence-based home-visiting models incorporate community doulas who focus on childbirth education, breastfeeding, pregnancy health, and newborn care. This randomized controlled trial (RCT) examines the impact of doula-home-visiting on birth outcomes, postpartum maternal and infant health, and newborn care practices. Methods 312 young (M = 18.4 years), pregnant women across four communities were randomly assigned to receive doula-home-visiting services or case management. Women were African American (45%), Latina (38%), white (8%), and multiracial/other (9%). They were interviewed during pregnancy and at 3-weeks and 3-months postpartum. Results Intervention-group mothers were more likely to attend childbirth-preparation classes (50 vs. 10%, OR = 9.82, p < .01), but there were no differences on Caesarean delivery, birthweight, prematurity, or postpartum depression. Intervention-group mothers were less likely to use epidural/pain medication during labor (72 vs. 83%; OR = 0.49, p < .01) and more likely to initiate breastfeeding (81 vs. 74%; OR = 1.72, p < .05), although the breastfeeding impact was not sustained over time. Intervention-group mothers were more likely to put infants on their backs to sleep (70 vs. 61%; OR = 1.64, p < .05) and utilize car-seats at three weeks (97 vs. 93%; OR = 3.16, p < .05). Conclusions for practices The doula-home-visiting intervention was associated with positive infant-care behaviors. Since few evidence-based home-visiting programs have shown health impacts in the postpartum months after birth, incorporating doula services may confer additional health benefits to families.

The birth of a child represents a unique window of opportunity to understand and support ongoing father involvement among low‐income unmarried parents. Using data collected as part of a randomized controlled trial of a community‐based home visiting intervention provided to 248 low‐income African American women, a propensity score matching approach was used to estimate the effect of fathers' presence at birth on multiple measures of later father involvement over the first 2 years postpartum. The results indicated that participation in child care activities is the only form of involvement predicted by presence at birth at 4 months, and none of the forms of father involvement measured were predicted at 12 months; however, presence at birth was predictive of all 7 indicators of involvement at 24 months. Engaging fathers in the birth experience may represent an important opportunity to provide services.

Doulas, whose traditional role is to support women during labor and delivery, are being increasingly utilized within community‐based programs where a primary goal is supporting mother–infant relationships. The present study investigated the effect of doula services on parenting among young, low‐income mothers. A total of 248 pregnant women were randomly assigned to receive either doula services or routine medical and social services. The doulas provided prenatal home visitation, support during labor and delivery, and 3 months of postpartum home visitation. Parenting was assessed through video recordings of mother–infant interaction at 4, 12, and 24 months of child age and maternal report of parenting attitudes and stress. Intent‐to‐treat analyses showed that mothers who had received doula services endorsed more child‐centered parenting values, showed more positive engagement with their infants, and were more likely to respond to infant distress at 4 months. Their infants were less likely to show visible upset during observed interactions. Most effects of the program on parent and child behavior faded over time. Community doula intervention is a promising practice for supporting parenting and parent–infant interaction. Integration of doulas into longer term home‐visiting models might sustain the early impact of doula services and enhance parenting services offered by traditional home‐visiting programs.

Schizophrenia has come to be viewed as a neurodevelopmental disorder that is characterized by genetic vulnerability, stressors during the prenatal period that may be marked by minor physical anomalies and neurobehavioral deficits that emerge in early development. Less is known about the neurodevelopmental origins of schizotypal personality symptoms. The present study examines schizotypal symptoms in Israeli adolescents (mean age = 16.79 years) who have not yet reached the developmental period during which first schizophrenic episode is most likely to emerge: 39 adolescent offspring of parents with schizophrenia, 39 offspring of parents with other psychiatric disorders, and 36 offspring of parents with no history of mental illness. The Semi-Structured Kiddie Interview for Personality Syndromes was used to assess cognitive–perceptual, interpersonal, and disorganized schizotypal symptoms. Interpersonal schizotypal symptoms were more prevalent in the schizophrenia offspring group than in the no-mental-illness offspring group. Among the schizophrenia offspring group, interpersonal, but not cognitive–perceptual, schizotypal symptoms were associated with minor physical anomalies, fine motor dyscoordination, and deficits in executive functioning during adolescence. Among young people whose parents did not have schizophrenia, cognitive–perceptual schizotypal symptoms were correlated with deficits in executive functioning. Adolescent schizotypal symptoms were associated with neurobehavioral symptoms measured during middle childhood in a subgroup of the sample that had been assessed prospectively. Finally, young people who had genetic risk for schizophrenia, minor physical anomalies, and neurobehavioral signs together were at markedly increased risk for symptoms of interpersonal schizotypal symptoms, compared to young people with one or none of these risk factors.