The Impact Of The Mother's Cognitive Behavior Intervention On Premature Infant-Mother Interaction

Background Mother-infant interaction is influenced by the behaviors between mother and infant. Attachment is influenced by the quality of interactions. Critical to the success of any interaction is the ability of the parent and infant to adapt to one another. Research shows that early mother-infant interaction predicted the subsequent style and nature of later interactions and for that reason it is important to help the mother and infant get off to the best start. Now advances in technology have allowed greater numbers of premature infants to surrive. But many studies showed that premature infants were less attentive, less expressive, and fussier than full-term infants. Mothers usually lack of knowledge of infant behavior and perceive more stress which would cause the mothers become less senitive to the infant's cues. All of these factors would interrupt the mother-infant interaction. The purpose of the current study is to determine whether the Cognitive Behavior Intervention (CBI) would improve the mother's knowledge of premature infants interaction behavior, develop positive emotions and enhance the mother-infant interaction.Objective To examine the impact of Cognitive Behavior Intervention in the neonatal department on mother-infant interacion.Methods 38 low-risk mother-infant dyads were assigned to intervention group and control group. Intervention group mothers (n=19) participated in CBI. Control group mothers (n=19) received educational materials. Mothers in the CBI received 4 times interventions and 2 hours for each time. The CBI process is including assessment, plan, implementation and evaluation. Mothers were educated for knowledge about appearance and behavioral characteristics of preterm infants and were guided about how to take care of their baby and participate in nursing care process. Mothers completed measures on knowledge of premature infant behaviors (Knowledge of Premature Infant-Mother Interaction Scale, KPIMIS ) in the first visit in hospital and before infant dischage, depression (Self-rating Depression Scale, SDS) and mother-infant interaction (Nursing Child Assessment Feeding Scale ,NCAFS ) in the first visit in hospital and first follow-up after infant discharge.Results The results of repeated-meaures ANOVA showed that the scores of knowledge of infant behaviors were higher in the intervention group mothers (17.05±2.48 ) than in the control group mothers( 14.00±2.96), (P<0.001). And the intervention group mothers (2.11±0.32, 9.84±2.01) showed the lower scores of the affective, psychological symptoms associated with depression compared with the control group mothers ( 2.37±0.76 , 11.79±2.99 ) , (P<0.05). The intervention mother-infant dyads (47.21±8.48) showed higher scores than the control group (44.37±6.47), but there was no statistic diffeence between the two groups, (P>0.05).Conclusion The Mothers lack of knowledge of premature infants behaviors. The levels of premature infant-mother interactions were low. The CBI could improve mother's knowledge of premature infants behaviors, enhanced mother positive emotions. Further study is needed to examine the effects of CBI in improving mother-infant interaction.