Premium
Fathers’Birth Attendance, Early Extended Contact, and Father‐Infant Interaction at Five Months Postpartum
Author(s) -
Palkovitz Rob
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
birth
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.233
H-Index - 83
eISSN - 1523-536X
pISSN - 0730-7659
DOI - 10.1111/j.1523-536x.1982.tb01652.x
Subject(s) - attendance , medicine , body contact , skin to skin , developmental psychology , obstetrics , psychology , pediatrics , demography , breastfeeding , physics , optoelectronics , sociology , economics , economic growth
Forty couples and their 5‐month old infants were observed in their homes in a study of the relationships between fathers’birth attendance, early extended contact, and involvement with their babies at five months postpartum. Fathers who were excluded from the birth were more involved with their babies, in the presence of their wives, than were fathers who attended births. The three aspects of early extended contact that were found to be significantly associated with fathers’caregiving and social involvement at five months were time of first contact, length of first contact, and total hours fathers spent with children in the hospital. The implications for research and for policy concerning early father‐infant contact are discussed.