Relationship focused mother–infant groups: Preliminary evaluation of improvements in maternal mental health, parenting confidence, and parental reflective functioning

Abstract

We report on two preliminary evaluations of a group intervention, targeting vulnerable infants and their mothers within the first 6-months postpartum. The Mother–Baby Nurture® program aims to strengthen the developing infant–mother attachment relationship by increasing maternal mentalizing. These studies were undertaken with pre-post evaluations with the mothers of infants under 10-months of age. The mother–infant dyads participated in ten 2-h group sessions. Study one (N = 69 dyads) included self-reported maternal depression, anxiety, and parenting confidence. In study two (N = 27 dyads), parenting stress and reflective functioning were measured by self-report, and reflective functioning coded on the 5 min speech sample (completed by N = 22). Results from study one confirmed a decrease in depression (p