Social support provided by public health nurses and the coping of first-time mothers with child care

The purpose of this study was to look at the factors related to the first-t ime mother's coping with child care when her child is 3 months old. This st udy is part of an extensive longitudinal project in which the development o f mothering skills of first-time mothers was followed up for 8 months postp artum. The data were collected with a questionnaire between March and Septe mber 1995, in a sample of 271 first-time mothers. The mothers filled in the questionnaire when their babies were 3 months old. Coping with child care was assessed using Spearman correlation coefficient and stepwise regression analysis. Positive correlation was found between the mother's competence, attachment to the child, health, depression, relationship with the spouse, sense of isolation and role restriction, and the mother's coping with child care. The strongest correlation existed between the mother's competence an d her coping. Positive correlation was also found between the child's mood, demandingness and acceptability, and the mother's coping with child care, with the child's demandingness having the strongest correlation. Positive c orrelation was again found between social support-the average functional su pport the mother received from her own social network, plus affect, affirma tion, and aid from the public health nurses-and the mother's coping with ch ild care. The predictors included in the multivariate method were the mothe r's competence, health, depression, and attachment to her child; the child' s mood and ease or difficulty of care; and the affect and affirmation from the public health nurse. The results show that the first-time mother's copi ng with child care, when the child is 3 months old, is affected by the char acteristics of both mother and child as well as by the social support recei ved from their social network and from the public health nurses at the chil d welfare clinic.