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Article Excerpt
After a steady decline in teen births from 1991 to 2005, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) indicate that the number of teen births increased again in 2006. Birth rates for U.S. teen mothers (15 to 19 years of age) rose 3% in 2006 (Hamilton, Martin, & Ventura, 2007). This is particularly concerning because research findings indicate teen mothers are less knowledgeable about normal child development, display fewer and poorer quality reciprocal vocalizations with their infants, and are less aware of and responsive to their child's needs. Teen mothers are also less likely to spend time looking at their babies, are more ambivalent about being a mother, and are at increased risk for depression (Dukewich, Borkowski, & Whitman, 1999). For adolescent mothers, high parental stress was associated with increased maternal focus on more negative aspects of infant behavior, such as crying and fussiness. Researchers suggest that infants of teen mothers are at high risk for less positive mother-infant interaction and cognitive stimulation that might result in cognitive, language, or social difficulties (Secco & Moffatt, 2003). Consequently, there appears to be a need for an intervention that will enhance the parent-child relationship and maternal confidence within this population.
A great deal of information related to the benefits of infant massage for premature infants is available in the literature (Field, 1998). These findings suggest that the massage may help enhance the development of sleep/wake patterns in pre-term infants (Dieter, Field, Hernandez-Reif, Emory, & Redzepi, 2003). Pre-term infants also gained more weight, scored higher on the Brazelton scale (a measure of babies' strengths, adaptive responses, and possible vulnerabilities), and had shorter hospital stays than control infants (Field et al., 1986). However, only a few studies have focused on infants of teen mothers. Although research on the benefits of touch interventions on parents has not been the primary focus of most infant massage studies, benefits have been found in the areas of parental depression, as well as more appropriate care-giving behavior (Onozawa, Glover, Adams, Modi, & Kumar, 2001; Weiss, Wilson, Hertenstein, & Campos, 2000). Additionally, the positive behavioral outcomes elicited by parental touch are associated with more positive mother-infant interactions (Weiss et al., 2000). Teaching parents about their infants' development and behavioral cues may help these parents provide a more nurturing and developmentally appropriate environment for their infants. This in turn may help increase maternal confidence and ensure that these infants will have good developmental outcomes. However, research is required to support these hypotheses.
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Sameroff's transactional model (Sameroff & Chandler, 1975) has been used to explain the role that maternal characteristics play in shaping infant responses and vice versa (Goodman, Hans, & Bernstein, 2005; Van Doesum, Hosman, & Riksen-Walraven, 2005). The current study utilized the transactional model as the theoretical basis for predicting maternal benefits in relation to infant massage training for teen mothers. The model suggests that infant massage provides mothers with knowledge about infant cues. This knowledge may help mothers recognize and react more appropriately to their infants' needs, which in turn may result in maternal perceptions of more satisfied and content infants. Additionally, more content infants may result in increased maternal confidence, as well as decreased parenting stress and maternal depression because mothers perceive their actions and behaviors as resulting in positive infant responses and outcomes. Positive infant responses may then serve as reinforcers for mothers to use the knowledge that they gained through infant massage training (see Figure 1).
The overall purpose of the current study was to expand the research in infant massage therapy to the teen mother population and use theory to develop, implement, and evaluate a massage intervention that would have direct and indirect benefits for the mother. Based on existing literature, researchers hypothesized that the massage intervention participants would have higher maternal confidence, greater reduction in maternal depression, lower parenting stress, and more positive feelings about physical contact after 2 months than teen mothers who did not massage their infants. It was further hypothesized that infants who received infant massage from their mothers would be perceived by their mothers as having more adaptive temperaments at 2 months after the massage training than infants who did not receive infant massage from their mothers.
Methodology
Sample
The current study involved a 2 (group--control and massage intervention) x 2 (time--baseline and post-intervention) mixed factorial design. Twenty-five African-American teen mothers aged 14 to 18 years (M = 16.13, SD = 1.15) and attending classes (grades 9 through 12) through a Young Mothers' Program in two urban high schools in the southeast United States participated in the project. The mothers were assigned randomly to a control (n = 16) or intervention (n = 9) group using a random number table. This Young Mothers' Program serves...
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