A comparison of parental interactions with term and preterm infants

The purpose of this study was to compare father interactions to mother interactions with term and preterm infants. A purposive sample of 59 two-parent families with either a healthy term infant or a clinically normal preterm infant were recruited following the infant's birth. At 3 months, separate observations were made of each parent interacting with the infant during a teaching task in the home setting. As has been found in other research, mother-infant interactions scores were less favorable for preterm dyads. In contrast, father-infant interaction scores were less favorable for term dyads. The different pattern of interactions by the fathers was not explained by differences in paternal age, education, socioeconomic status, the father's current frequency of participation in child care or by infant gender.