The role of an early intervention on enhancing the quality of mother-infant interaction

The study examines an intervention designed to influence mothers' sensitive responsiveness toward their infant by presenting information about the new born's competence to interact and promoting affectionate handling and inter action with the infant. Thirty-six primiparous mothers and their newborn in fants participated in the study. On day 2/3 after delivery, mother-infant d yads were assigned to either: (1) an experimental group that received an in tervention program designed to enhance mother-infant interaction; or (2) a control group that was presented with an intervention that emphasized basic caregiving skills. One month later an observation was undertaken in the ho me to assess mother-infant synchronous and asynchronous co-occurrences duri ng free-play and infant bathing. The enhancement group showed a reliably gr eater frequency of co-occurrences involving vocal exchanges, looking to the partner, and physical contact. There also were differences in mothers' res ponsiveness to infant crying and involuntary responses. The findings show t hat even a modest videotaped early intervention can enhance mothers' sensit ive responsiveness to the infant.