Mothers' and unrelated persons' initial handling of newborn infants.
The pattern of newborn handling by 36 newly delivered women during their infants' first postpartum bedside visit was compared with the pattern of newborn handling by 36 female nursing students at the beginning of their first clinical day in a hospital normal newborn nursery. The research hypothesis predicted that the initial pattern of handling a newborn infant would be similar for mothers and persons unrelated to the newborn. However, mothers and students differed significantly, both for the amount of handling during the observation period and the time it took each group to initiate using fingers, palms, arms, and trunk to handle the infant. In addition, the sequence of use of fingers, palms, arms, and trunk was different for mothers and students. Although the mothers did not follow the sequence of handling reported in the literature, the students did, thus casting doubt on the specificity of a pattern of maternal handling of the newborn infant as a means of assessing maternal attachment.
D000328:Adult; D001132:Arm; D005260:Female; D005385:Fingers; D006225:Hand; D006234:Handling, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D009035:Mothers; D009725:Nurseries, Hospital; D009769:Object Attachment; D010371:Pediatric Nursing; D013338:Students, Nursing; D014110:Touch