TWIN PREGNANCY AND THE BUILDING OF MOTHER-TWIN RELATIONSHIP

L’esperienza di aspettare e di essere genitore di due gemelli è innegabilmente diversa rispetto alla gravidanza alla genitorialità nel caso di un singolo bambino. La nascita gemellare è associata a conseguenze mediche, sanitarie, socio-emotive, psicologiche e dello sviluppo. Lo scopo di questo lavoro è stato quello di aggiungere conoscenze rispetto agli aspetti unici legati alla gravidanza gemellare e alla genitorialità. Ho esaminato il modo in cui le future mamme vivono la loro gravidanza e come le madri sperimentano l’essere genitori di due gemelli e come queste interagiscono con i loro bambini nel periodo post-partum. Per studiare meglio l'esperienza di aspettare e di essere madre di due gemelli, i risultati sono stati confrontati con la letteratura esistente e sono stati utilizzati diversi progetti di ricerca. È stata valutata la validità e le proprietà psicometriche della versione italiana del Baby Care Questionnaire; è stato valutato se l'esperienza unica di un gemello in attesa potesse influenzare negativamente l'attaccamento prenatale; è stato esplorato l'impatto della nascita gemellare sull'interazione madre-figlio nel primo periodo post-partum. Questa tesi ha stabilito che le madri di gemelli hanno esigenze particolari e affrontano sfide uniche. Le madri di gemelli sembrano essere meno adattate dal punto di vista psicologico alla loro gravidanza in termini di basso livello di attaccamento prenatale. Anche la costruzione di una relazione stretta e positiva potrebbe essere più difficile nel caso dei gemelli.The experience of expecting and parenting twins is undeniably different from that of a singleton pregnancy and parenthood. Twin births are associated with medical, health care, socio-emotional, psychological and developmental consequences. The aim of this work was to add knowledge concerning the unique aspects of expecting and parenting twins. I examined the way the mothers-to-be live their pregnancy as well as how mothers experience parenting twins and interact with their babies in the post-partum period. To better investigate the unique experience of expecting and parenting twins, results were compared with the existing literature and different research design were used. It was evaluated the validity and the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Baby Care Questionnaire; it was investigated if the unique experience of expecting twin may adversely affect prenatal attachment; it was explored the impact of twin birth on mother-child interaction in the early post-partum period. This thesis established that mothers of twins have unique needs and face unique challenges. Mothers of twins seems to be less psychological adjusted to their pregnancy in terms of lower level of prenatal attachment. Also the building of a close and positive relationship could be more difficult in the case of twins

Prenatal Attachment in Twin Pregnancy

Twin births are associated with several medical, healthcare, socio-emotional, psychological and developmental consequences for families. Parents generally describe twin pregnancies as physically and emotionally difficult. Moreover, compared to singleton pregnancies, twin pregnancies are reported to carry higher maternal as well as perinatal morbidity and mortality. The aim of this chapter is to review literature on twin pregnancy and to give a comprehensive framework about parents’ experience of expecting twins. An important issue related to the psychological adjustment during twin pregnancies is prenatal attachment. During pregnancy, mothers use to think about their child-to-be, and they start to create representation of themselves as mothers. Prenatal attachment in twin pregnancies may differ from that in singleton ones. During a twin pregnancy, the mother-to-be has to deal with an identification process with two children at the same time and have to create a mental space that allow her to make representation of both children. The monitoring of these pregnancies is important for the creation and the consolidation of these maternal representations: ultrasound examinations revealed the fetal gender that facilitates naming the unborn twins and thinking to them as individuals and this is particularly important in the case of complicated twin pregnancies

Caring for twins during infancy: A systematic review of the literature on sleeping and feeding practices amongst parents of twins

Objective To better investigate how the parents of twins approach the care of their infants in terms of feeding and sleeping practices after birth by examining the sleeping and feeding behaviours of parents with twin babies. Methods Three electronic databases (PubMed, PsycINFO, and ScienceDirect) were searched, and studies published between 2006 and 2016 were included. The Preferred Reporting Item for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (Moher et al., 2015) was adopted. Key findings were extracted and synthesised. Results Fourteen studies were included (three focused on sleeping, seven focused on feeding, and four focused on sleeping but considered feeding to be a secondary issue). Conclusion Caring for twins presents unique challenges that require specific choices to be made. The parents of twins could benefit from additional and specially developed advice from health professionals for considering and implementing adequate sleep and feeding practices that reduce parental fatigue and stress, as well as promote parent-twin relationships

Monochorionic twins and the early mother-infant relationship: an exploratory observational study of mother-infant interaction in the post-partum period

The extraordinary increase in twin rates and specifically monochorionic twin pregnancies represents a major public health issue due to the associated increased risks for the mother, the child and their relationship. The aim of the present study was to examine the quality of mothers’ behaviour during mother–infant interaction in the early postpartum period by comparing mothers of twins and mothers of singletons during face-to-face interaction with their infants. Demographic and clinical information was collected by trained research psychologists from the mothers’ and the childrens’ clinical records and from interviews with the mothers. At three months (corrected for prematurity), the interactions of the dyads (11 mother-twin infant dyads and 11 mother-singleton dyads) were filmed at participants’ homes in accordance with the procedure of the Global Rating Scales. Maternal behaviour during interactions was assessed and rated by two trained research psychologists. With regard to the mothers’ interaction with each twin, no differences were found between mothers’ scores in every GRS subscale, indicating that mothers did not interact differently with their twins. Comparisons between mothers of MC twins and mothers of singletons showed that the quality of maternal sensitive behaviour during the interactions were lower in mothers of twins (0.35) Mothers of twins were also more distant during interactions with their babies and more likely to experience depression symptoms than mothers of singletons (0.05). Future research should examine mother-infant relationships following twin birth with larger samples. Such research will be especially useful in evaluating the potential benefits of interventions to promote positive mother-infant interactions

The role of experience in parenting beliefs of British and Italian women during pregnancy

To understand the role of experience in parenting beliefs about caring for infants, we examined the parenting beliefs of pregnant women who were expecting their first child with those of pregnant women who already had at least one other child. A culturally diverse sample of 550 British and Italian women completed self-report measures evaluating their beliefs about the value of attunement and structure in caregiving, parenting self-efficacy, and home chaos. Psychometric evaluation confirmed the two-factor structure of the Baby Care Questionnaire (BCQ) for measuring attunement and structure but did not support configural invariance across the different samples. Beliefs about attunement and structure were related to parenting experience: pregnant women who already had at least one other child reported stronger beliefs in attunement, whereas pregnant women expecting their first child reported stronger beliefs in structure. Regression analyses revealed that the associations between parenting beliefs and experience remained when controlling for country, age, and education. Despite the limitations imposed by the lack of configural invariance, this cross-sectional, cross-cultural study constitutes an important first step in examining the relations between parenting experience and parenting beliefs during pregnancy

L’impatto delle esperienze di vita negative della madre sul bambino

Nel tentativo di indagare l\u2019impatto delle esperienze di vita negative materne sull\u2019attaccamento e l\u2019adattamento del bambino, \ue8 stato condotto uno studio che si \ue8 avvalso della somministrazione del Parenting Stress Index \u2013 Short Form (PSI-SF; Guarino et al., 2008), del Los Angeles Symptoms Checklist (LASC; King et al., 1995), del Vulnerable Attachment Style Questionnaire (VASQ; Bifulco et al., 2003), della Child Behavior Checklist 1\ubd-5 (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000) e dell\u2019Attachment Q-Sort (AQS; Cassibba & D\u2019Odorico, 2000). Lo studio, che ha coinvolto 54 mamme (27 inserite in comunit\ue0 mamma-bambino) e i loro bambini, ha messo in luce come l\u2019aver vissuto esperienze di vita negative possa andare a impattare sul benessere psicologico della madre, sulla percezione di s\ue9 come genitore, sulle modalit\ue0 di relazioni con il figlio e, di conseguenza, sul suo benessere del bambino in termini di adattamento e di attaccamento

COPEWithME: The Role of Parental Ability to Support and Promote Child Resilient Behaviors During the COVID-19 Emergency

none4noThe COVID-19 pandemic has led to lockdown in many countries and Italy was the first one interested in Europe. The lockdown strategy is an essential step to curb the exponential rise of COVID-19 cases, but it is very demanding for the population involved and especially for children and their families. The aims of the present study are: (a) to explore the psychometric properties of the COPEWithME questionnaire, a new tool to evaluate parents' ability to support and promote child resilient behaviors, (b) to investigate the relation between parents' resilience and their ability to support and promote child resilient behaviors with child resilience and child stress-related behaviors assessed during the COVID-19 outbreak. Participants (N = 158 mothers, with 6- to 11-years-old children, 53% female), who were volunteers and anonymous, filled out an online questionnaire composed by CD-RISC 25, PMK-CYRM-R, and COPEWithME. With regard to the COPEWithME, validation exploratory factor analyses revealed a one-factor solution of 18 items. The COPEWithME positively correlates both with mothers' resilience and with children's resilience. Mediation analysis showed that the association between mothers' resilience and children's stress-related behaviors was mediated by the mothers' ability to support and promote child resilient behaviors. The COPEWithME, to our knowledge, is the first measure of parents' ability to support and promote resilient behaviors in school-age children, a key parenting skill that may help children in dealing with stressful situations such as the COVID-19 outbreak. These findings represent useful insights to advance mental health interventions in the post-pandemic phases suggesting focusing on a family's resources and resilience processes.openMariani Wigley I.L.C.; Mascheroni E.; Bulletti F.; Bonichini S.Mariani Wigley, I. L. C.; Mascheroni, E.; Bulletti, F.; Bonichini, S

Exploring maternal touch in the infant’s first 18 months of life: A study on an Italian sample

Affective touch is a crucial component of caregiving in the early life and constitutes a key factor with significant impact on infant later-life outcomes. The Parent-Infant Caregiving Touch Scale (PICTS) allows to quantify and qualify maternal touch behaviors in the first months of infant’ life. In the current study, we contributed to PICTS Italian validation and explored weather early maternal touch could be associated with maternal emotional state, maternal history of affective touch experiences throughout the lifespan, infants’ sex and age. We also explored possible associations between PICTS factor scores and COVID-19 related variables. Data analyses were run on a sample of 377 Italian mothers (Mean age = 33.29; SD = 4.79) participating in an on-line survey. Confirmatory Factor Analysis was applied. The three-dimensional structure of PICTS (i.e., Stroking, Affective Communication, Holding) dropping one item out, resulted in the best model in our sample. Maternal emotional state and COVID-19 related variables did not affect PICTS factor scores while maternal comfort and amount of affective touch experienced during adulthood resulted significantly associated with Stroking, Affective Communication, Holding factors. Regarding infants’ dimensions, infants’ sex and age did not affect PICTS factor scores. Findings suggest that PICTS Italian version is a good measurement of maternal affective touch behaviors in the early infancy and that maternal history of touch is associated with her current use of touch. This suggests that maternal history of touch may represent a key factor in the establishment of infants’ life-long socio-emotional wellbeing

Epigenetic protection: maternal touch and DNA-methylation in early life

Caregiving touch is a crucial component of natural caregiving and constitutes a protective factor with significant impact on infant neurodevelopment. Recent studies highlighted that maternal touch in early life is associated with epigenetic variation between infants. In the current paper, studies that address early caregiving touch in association with DNA methylation will be discussed, positing that mother-infant touch acts as an epigenetic protection mechanism. Understanding how maternal touch and body-to-body contact can shape the epigenome holds the potential to shed light on the mechanisms through which these early tactile experiences advance mental and physical health over the lifetime