A comparison of adolescent and adult mothers on factors affecting maternal role attainment.

The purpose of the study was to investigate relationships among maternal age, maternal prenatal attachment, perception of birth experience, and maternal role attainment. The sample consisted of Black and Caucasian low-income women. Twenty adolescents, 16 years and younger, and 32 adult pregnant women, 21 years and older, completed Cranley's (1981) Prenatal Attachment Tool in their second or third trimester of pregnancy. In the postpartum period while the mothers and infants were hospitalized, they were videotaped and the Maternal-Infant Adaptation Scale (MIAS) (Price, 1983) was used to evaluate maternal role attainment. The mothers also completed a questionnaire describing their experiences with pregnancy, labor and delivery, and their preparation for motherhood. Using t-tests, there were no significant differences in the means of the two groups on the prenatal attachment tool or the MIAS.