Marital Change During the Transition to Parenthood and Security of Infant-Parent Attachment

To extend research on the characteristics and determinants of marital change during the transition to parenthood to include the consequences of such change, the security of infant-parent attachment was examined and mothers of secure and insecure infants differed in their marital appraisal.

Abstract

To extend research on the characteristics and determinants of marital change during the transition to parenthood to include the consequences of such change, the security of infant-parent attachment was examined. Drawing on data from a longitudinal study of infant and family development, groups were formed on the basis of attachment security at one year and compared in terms of patterns of marital change displayed by mothers and fathers. Mothers of insecure infants experienced significantly greater declines in positive marital activities and sentiments and greater increases in negative marital activities and sentiments than did mothers of secure one-year-olds, and this difference emerged between three and nine months postpartum. Even before babies were born, mothers of secure and insecure infants differed in their marital appraisal. Specifically, mothers of secure infants tended to base their prenatal marital satisfaction appraisals more on positive than negative aspects of the marriage whereas the reverse was true of mothers of insecure infants. No relationship between marital change and attachment was discerned for husbands.