Infant Care Concerns of Primigravida Mothers and Nursing Practice: Two Models

Abstract

Pre-natal instruction programs to primigravida mothers would appear to be an excellent situation for imparting the information necessary for successful infant care practices. In Winnipeg, however, we found that only a minimum of instruction time in these courses was allotted to infant care topics, while the majority of time was devoted to pregnancy and delivery topics. What and how much infant care information could be dealt with in pre-natal instruction programs? What were the effects of pre-natal courses on the infant care concerns of those attending? These specific questions oriented our research into the more general question: what are the correlates of infant care concerns of primigravida mothers? Prior research on the infant care concerns of first time mothers has not raised directly the question of the general correlates of concerns. Brown (1967) hypothesized that nurse visits to first-time mothers at home reduce both the number and intensity of infant care concerns, while Adams (1963) compared the infant care concerns of normal weight and premature infant primigravida mothers. Both of these studies were based on what may be referred to as the "anxiety" model of concerns _ a model that assumes that concerns play a negative role in the mother-child relationship and are consequently something that should be removed. For example, Brown's (1967) measure of nurse visitation effectiveness is the reduction in the number and/or intensity of concerns.