Working mothers and early childhood outcomes: lessons from the Canadian National Longitudinal Study on Children and Youth

Intra-Individual Variability in Gross Motor Development in Healthy Full-Term Infants Aged 0-13 Months and Associated Factors during Child Rearing

The gross motor development of a typically developing infant is a dynamic process, the intra-individual variability of which can be investigated through longitudinal assessments. Changes in gross motor development vary, according to the interaction of multiple sub-systems within the child, environment, task setting, and experience or practice of movement. At present, studies on environmental factors that influence gross motor development in full-term infants over time are limited. The main aim of this study was to investigate environmental factors affecting intra-individual variability from birth to 13 months. The gross motor development of 41 full-term infants was longitudinally assessed every month from the age of 15 days using the Alberta Infant Motor Scale. Parents were interviewed monthly about environmental factors during childcare. Infants showed fluctuations in the percentile of gross motor development, and no systematic pattern was detected. The total mean range of gross motor percentile was 65.95 (SD = 15.74; SEM = 2.28). The percentiles of gross motor skills over the 14 assessments ranged from 36 to 93 percentile points. Factors that were significantly associated with the gross motor development percentile were the use of a baby walker (Coef. = -8.83, p ≤ 0.0001) and a baby hammock (Coef. = 7.33, p = 0.04). The use of baby hammocks could increase the gross motor percentile by 7.33 points. Although the usage of a baby walker is common practice in childcare, it may cause a decrease in the gross motor percentile by 8.83 points according to this study. In conclusion, healthy full-term infants exhibited a natural variability in gross motor development. Placing infants in a baby walker during the first year of age should be approached with caution due to the risk of delayed gross motor development.

Perspectives of infant active play: a qualitative comparison of working versus stay-at-home parents

Background

Parents play a key role in infant’s development through their interactions and the type of environment they provide to promote active play. The amount of time parents are able to spend with their infant is dependent on their working status, yet few studies have explored parent perception of their infant’s active play by working status. The purpose of this study was to explore parent perception of active play and compare responses between working and stay-at-home parents.

Methods

Twenty-nine parents participated in this qualitative study by completing a one-time, in-person semi-structured interview based on the Theory of Planned Behavior. Themes were developed and compared based on parental working status using a directed content analysis approach.

Results

All parents believed active play could have a positive effect on their child’s development through physical, social and emotional, cognitive, and/or language and communication development. However, stay-at-home parents reported a broader impact of active play across these domains; whereas working parents most often referenced active play as impacting infant’s physical development. Social and emotional interactions were the highest reported form of active play among all parents. Additionally, all parents described similar barriers to increasing the time for active play. The most commonly reported barrier for all parents was time or schedule followed by care needs of the infant, environmental concerns, and need for restrictive devices (e.g., car seats). More stay-at-home parents than working parents reported the care needs of the infant as being a barrier. Recommendations for active play were not widely known amongst all parents, with a higher percentage of working parents reporting they would desire advice from a healthcare provider.

Conclusions

Working status of parents appears to have implications on perceptions of active play which in turn may influence infants’ development. Future studies should objectively assess the impact of parents’ working status on infant development and explore how gender of the parent may serve as a confounding variable.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12889-021-10286-x.

Gross motor development of Thai healthy full-term infants aged from birth to 14 months using the Alberta Infant Motor Scale: Inter individual variability

BACKGROUND

The gross motor percentiles of the Alberta Infants Motor Scale (AIMS) have been commonly referenced in research. Cross-cultural assessment of gross motor development during the first year of life is suggested as diverse child-rearing practices can cause inter-variability. The main aim of this study was to develop an AIMS percentile curve for typically developing home-raised infants in the northeastern part of Thailand. The AIMS scores of these infants were also compared with the standard Canadian norms.

METHODS

The gross motor development of 574 full-term infants aged 15 days to 14 months was assessed using the Thai version of the AIMS. Percentile curves of their gross motor ability were developed. The Thai infants' mean AIMS scores were compared with the Canadian norm using the one-sample t-test.

RESULTS

The percentile curve of gross motor development of healthy Thai infants showed that mean AIMS scores increased with age. Large inter-variability was present from the 7th to 10th months. The mean AIMS scores of Thai infants were significantly lower than the standard Canadian means during the first three months (P < 0.05), but significantly higher in three age groups: 7-<8 months, 11-<12 months, and 13-14 months.

CONCLUSION

The developed percentile curve of gross motor development is applicable for infants from the same demographic and environmental context. According to the study, infants from diverse cultures display a natural inter-variability in gross motor development between the 7th and 10th months.

Comparison of motor and cognitive performance of children attending public and private day care centers

Background

Given that environmental factors, such as the school environment, can influence child development, more attention should be paid to the development of children attending day care centers.

Objective

Todetermine whether there are differences in the gross motor, fine motor, or cognitive performances of children between 1 and3 years-old of similar socioeconomic status attending public and private day care centers full time.

Method

Participants were divided into 2 groups, 1 of children attending public day care centers (69 children) and another of children attending private day care centers (47 children). All children were healthy and regularly attended day care full time for over 4 months. To assess cognitive, gross and fine motor performance, the Bayley Scales of Infant and Toddler Development III was used. The Mann-Whitney test was used for comparative analyses between groups of children between 13 and 24 months, 25 and 41 months, and 13 and 41 months.

Results

Children in public day care centers exhibited lower scores on the cognitive development scale beginning at 13 months old. The fine and gross motor performance scores were lower in children over the age of 25 months attending public centers. Maternal education was not related to the performance of children in either group.

Conclusion

The scores of cognitive performance as well as fine and gross motor performance of children of similar socioeconomic status who attend public day care centers are lower than children attending private daycare centers.

Using parent questionnaires to assess neurodevelopment in former preterm infants: a validation study

BACKGROUND

Former preterm and very low birthweight infants require close neurodevelopmental surveillance after hospital discharge, but in-person professional testing is resource-intensive and inconvenient for families. A standardised developmental questionnaire completed by parents offers an alternative to in-person testing, but few such questionnaires have been validated. Our aim was to validate the Motor and Social Development (MSD) scale in a sample of former preterm infants.

METHODS

We studied 321 visits to a neonatal follow-up clinic. Parents completed the MSD, which measures cognitive, motor and social abilities. Psychologists and physical therapists administered the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, 3rd edition (Bayley-III) cognitive and motor scales.

RESULTS

The median (range) gestational age was 28 (23, 34) weeks and birthweight 980 (400, 2700) g. Corrected age at study participation ranged 5-35 months. The mean (standard deviation) Bayley-III motor score was 94 (16), cognitive 98 (16) and MSD 91 (18). Internal consistency of the MSD was moderate to high (Cronbach alpha of 0.65 to 0.88). The MSD was moderately correlated with the Bayley-III motor (Pearson r = 0.49, P < 0.001) and cognitive (r = 0.45, P < 0.001) scales. The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve was 0.88 [95% confidence interval (CI) 0.81, 0.95] for the MSD to detect a low Bayley-III motor score (<70), and 0.88 [95% CI 0.82, 0.95] for a low cognitive score, indicating good discrimination.

CONCLUSIONS

The MSD has good internal and concurrent validity, and may be useful for neurodevelopmental assessment of former preterm and very low birthweight infants in clinical and research settings.

Study of mother-infant attachment patterns and influence factors in Shanghai

BACKGROUND

In contrast to the considerable volume of international research on infant attachment development, significantly less research has been conducted in China.

AIM

The present study was designed to identify the patterns of mother-infant attachment in Shanghai and to explore the influence factors.

STUDY DESIGN AND SUBJECTS

The subjects included 160 healthy infant-mother dyads. Infant attachment and temperament were assessed with the Strange Situation Procedure and Carey's temperament questionnaire, respectively; the mother's personality, maternal sensitivity and marital satisfaction were assessed with Eysenck's personality questionnaire, Maternal Behavior Q-sort Manual Version 3.1 and Olson's marital questionnaire, respectively. A self-formulated questionnaire of family environment factors was completed by the infant's mother.

RESULTS

Of the 160 infants, 68.2% were rated as securely attached (B) and 31.8% as insecurely attached. Of those infants rated as insecurely attached, 7.5% were characterized as avoidant (A), 21.8% as resistant (C) and 2.5% as disorganized (D). Maternal sensitivity and marital satisfaction as well as the approachability dimension of infant temperament, were significantly different between securely attached infants and insecurely attached infants. From a temperament perspective, resistant infants showed higher-level intensity of reaction than avoidant infants. Moreover, multiple caregivers in the family and infant's sleeping with other caregivers at night were more likely to be associated with insecure mother-infant attachment.

CONCLUSION

There exist certain cultural characteristics in mother-infant attachment patterns in Shanghai. The influence factors are related with the high involvement of non-mother caregivers as well as maternal sensitivity, marital satisfaction and infant's temperament characteristics.