This book examines family interactions and relationships during the transition to parenthood. It offers a unique integration of different lines of research on prenatal family dynamics contributed by leading family researchers in North America and Europe who use observational approaches to study emergent family processes. The book explores prenatal dynamics in diverse families, including adolescent couples, same-sex couples, couples experiencing infertility, and couples expecting their second child. The introduction, anchored in family systems and structural theories, provides an overview of challenges couples commonly experience during the transition to parenthood and details prenatal family processes that predict postpartum adjustment in families. This sets the stage for subsequent chapters by emphasizing unparalleled windows into prenatal family dynamics provided by direct observation. Initial chapters focus on predictors of prenatal interactions and partners’ representations of parenthood. Subsequent chapters describe original research on prebirth couple interactions and the coparenting relationship emerging during pregnancy. The volume includes several studies that rely on innovative research designs using observations of simulated couple encounters with their newborn, represented by a life-sized infant doll. The book concludes with a review of recent prenatal intervention programs designed to improve interpersonal and coparenting relationships of married and unmarried couples. The volume offers recommendations for future research on prenatal family dynamics, including suggestions for methodological advances, exploration of prenatal risk factors, expansion of conceptual models to incorporate culturally-meaningful coparents besides mothers and fathers, and further focus on prenatal intervention programs. This book is an essential resource for researchers, clinicians and professionals, and graduate students in the fields of infant mental health/early child development, family studies, pediatrics, developmental psychology, public health, social work, and early childhood education.

This volume addresses how children's personal qualities make their mark on families in ways that may in turn influence children's subsequent development.

As you prepare to become a mother, you face an experience unlike any other in your life. Having a baby will redirect your preferences and pleasures and, most likely, will realign some of your values.As you undergo this unique psychological transformation, you will be guided by new hopes, fears, and priorities. In a most startling way, having a child will influence all of your closest relationships and redefine your role in your family's history. The charting of this remarkable, new realm is the subject of this compelling book.Renowned psychiatrist Daniel N. Stern has joined forces with pediatrician and child psychiatrist Nadia Bruschweiler-Stern and journalist Alison Freeland to paint a wonderfully evocative picture of the psychology of motherhood. At the heart of The Birth of a Mother is an arresting premise: Just as a baby develops physically in utero and after birth, so a mother is born psychologically in the many months that precede and follow the birth of her baby.The recognition of this inner transformation emerges from hundreds of interviews with new mothers and decades of clinical experience. Filled with revealing case studies and personal comments from women who have shared this experience, this book will serve as an invaluable sourcebook for new mothers, validating the often confusing emotions that accompany the development of this new identity. In addition to providing insight into the unique state of motherhood, the authors touch on related topics such as going back to work, fatherhood, adoption, and premature birth.During pregnancy, mothers-to-be talk about morning sickness and their changing bodies, and new mothers talk about their exhaustion, the benefits of nursing or bottle-feeding, and the dilemma of whether or when they should return to work. And yet, they can be strangely mute about the dramatic and often overwhelming changes going on in their inner lives. Finally, with The Birth of a Mother, these powerful feelings are eloquently put into words.

Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

Organized around time, the Third Edition of Dimensions of Human Behavior: The Changing Life Course helps students understand the relationship between time and human behavior. Using a life course perspective, author Elizabeth D. Hutchison shows how the multiple dimensions of person and environment work together with dimensions of time to produce patterns in unique life course journeys. The Third Edition is updated and revised to respond to the rapidity of changes in complex societies. New to the Third Edition Examines our increasing global interdependence: The human life course is placed in global context. Recognizes scientific advancements: Advances in neuroscience have been incorporated throughout the chapters. Emphasizes group-based diversity: More content has been added on the effects of gender, race, ethnicity, social class, sexual orientation, and disability on life course trajectories. Reorganizes family dynamics: Greater attention has been given to the role of fathers. Reflects contemporary issues: New case studies, exhibits, and Web resources have been added to provide the most up-to-date information.

This easy-to-read outline review follows the unique two-column Straight A's format that lets students choose how they study to improve test scores and final grades. The interior column outlines key facts for in-depth review; the exterior column lists only the most crucial points for quickest review. Other features include pretest questions at the beginning of each chapter; end-of-chapter NCLEX®-style questions; lists of top items to study before a test; Time-Out for Teaching patient-teaching points; Go with the Flow algorithms; and alerts highlighted in a second color. A bound-in CD-ROM contains hundreds of NCLEX®-style questions—including alternate-item format questions—with answers and rationales.

Maternal-Neonatal Nursing Made Incredibly Easy!,Third Edition offers everything nurses need to know for optimal maternal-neonatal nursing care. This thoroughly updated edition includes new information on bed rest, postpartum depression, alternative therapies, substance abuse, and complex psychosocial disorders, plus a new icon highlighting evidence-based practice. The book is written in the entertaining, award-winning Incredibly Easy! style, with numerous charts and illustrations, two four-page full-color inserts, humorous cartoons, icons emphasizing key information, memory joggers, and end-of-chapter quick quizzes.

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