Mother-infant interaction during bottle feeding

An exploratory study was undertaken for the purpose of identifying the mother and infant behaviors during the feeding-eating process, to produce a tool for recording such behavior, and to obtain information to serve as a basis for predicting which bottle feeding mothers will need outside assistance to successfully caring for their newborn infants. The sample included six primiparas, one of who was unwed, and multiparas. The mothers and infants were observed twice daily during their hospital stay beginning the first post-partum day and once at home. The total minutes of observation for the entire sample was 1058; the range of total observation lengths for single mother-infant pairs was 56 minutes for the shortest period and 124 minutes for the longest. The sample included two mothers with previous spontaneous abortions. One mother had aborted three times and the other mother had aborted once. The number of previous abortions correlated with more items than any other variable. There were positive correlations with the touching categories of fingering and no contact (P < 0.01) indicating the lack of contact the mother had with her baby. The care category of changing the diaper had a positive correlation (P > 0.01) indicating that the mother spent a relatively large amount of time during the feeding period in this activity. Holding the bottle had a negative correlation significant at the 0.001 level; thus the mother with previous abortions tended to prop the bottle. During ht observations the mother with three previous abortions was the only one who propped the bottle for long periods of time. Mothers with previous abortions perceived their infants as crying much of the time (P < .0.001); and stated they were uncomfortable during the observations periods (P < 0.001). The mother's response to the baby's crying and her secondary efforts to comfort the baby were both negatively correlated at the 0.05 level of significance, indicating that the mother used minimal levels of care to comfort the baby. The study was too small to draw any decisive conclusion. However, the mother's contact with her infant, per perception of the amount of the infant crying, her method of handling the bottle, her initial and secondary responses to the infant's crying and her comfort during the feeding observations are areas which should provide fruitful areas for investigation in the future.