Maternal parenting quality: It’s effect on infant mental health

Early years of life are highly influenced by the quality of relationships with parents, which have a lasting impression on future mental health. The parenting quality of infants those who were ‘normal/ at low risk’ and those who were ‘at risk’ and its effect on the mental health of infants was studied on a sample of 97 mother-infant dyads from rural and urban Dharwad, Karnataka, India. The parent-child interactions during play (with available play materials) were videotaped for 12-15 minutes duration at their home. The parenting quality was assessed using Keys to Interactive Parenting Scale by Comfort and Gordon (2006) which measures three constructs of parenting viz. building relationships, promoting learning and supporting confidence. The mental health of infants was measured using Ages and Stages Questionnaire-Socio-emotional by Squires et.al (2002) and the socioeconomic status (SES) was measured using SES Scale developed by Agarwal et.al (2005). The results revealed that the mothers of infants at ‘low risk’ were high on parenting quality. Child characteristics such as age and ordinal position, maternal characteristics such as age, education, occupation and age at marriage significantly predicted the infant mental health (37%). The maternal parenting quality alone predicted infant mental health (5%) which was in-turn correlated to maternal age, education, occupation, and SES. Hence there is a great need to provide intervention to mothers of infants who are ‘at risk’ and also to those mothers who are low on parenting quality so that the future generation blooms without any stressors that can damage the infant mental health.