Browsing by Subject "preterm birth"

Objectives. Reciprocal interaction between a parent and a child can face many challenges due to preterm birth. Not only is the preterm infant developmentally immature for social interaction, but also the parent may find it challenging to interact with the preterm child. Even though the preterm child would greatly benefit from parents’ support, it can be difficult for an anxious parent to support a child adequately, further harming the development of the preterm child. The aim of the current study was to examine how maternal anxiety after preterm birth affects later interaction between parents and the preterm child and the development of the preterm child at 2–3 years of age. Also, the associations between interaction and screen time and child’s development were examined. Methods. Participants of the study were 27 preterm children who were born at 30,20 (±2,27) weeks of gestation. Mothers assessed their anxiety after the preterm birth with a STAI -self valuation questionnaire at the time of the gestational age of 35 and 40 weeks. Later at the 2–3 year follow-up mothers, fathers or both parents estimated interaction with a questionnaire that examined the amounts of language and music actions at home and child’s screen time. Also, child’s development was assessed with Bayley-III. The associations were examined with Pearson correlation and Spearman order correlation coefficients. Results and conclusions. The results show that maternal anxiety after preterm birth is acutely very common and half of the mothers were moderately anxious. When anxiety seemed more chronic instead of short-lived, maternal anxiety after preterm birth was associated with less interaction at 2-3 years of age. In homes of less anxious mothers, parents and children’s siblings played more music and premature children spent more time watching television or otherwise spending time with smart devices than in the homes of more anxious mothers. In this study, the higher amount of child’s screen time was associated with poorer socio-emotional development. Screen time’s effect on socio-emotional development can be even more harmful with prematurely born children since they often suffer from developmental deficits and challenges in reciprocal interaction. Even though it seems that less anxious mothers mean well and want to offer more stimuli for their preterm children, they may not help the child by offering him or her more screen time. The results add to previous knowledge about screen time’s associations with poorer socio-emotional development for the first time with preterm children.