Improving interactions between substance abusing mothers and their substance-exposed newborns.

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To determine whether teaching comforting and interacting techniques within 24 hours of delivery to substance-abusing mothers will improve mother-infant interactions 48-72 hours after discharge. DESIGN: An experimental three-group, random assignment, pretest-posttest design. SETTING: Mothers attending a clinic serving a mostly indigent population. PARTICIPANTS: Eighty-three women whose urine was positive for drug use were invited to participate. Sixty mother-newborn couplets completed the study. INTERVENTIONS: Two observers, blind to the mothers' drug history, completed the Nursing Child Assessment Feeding Scale (NCAFS) of all participants within 24 hours of delivery. Mothers in the experimental group were given the intervention. The observers completed the NCAFS in the mothers' homes 48-72 hours after discharge. RESULTS: At the home visit, couplets in the treatment group showed significant improvement in their total NCAFS score (F = 5.18; p = .008). When analyzed separately, only maternal scores showed a significant difference between the treatment and control groups at the home visit (F = 6.48; p = .0029). CONCLUSIONS: Nurses, by demonstrating caregiving behavior, can help mothers recognize and respond to newborns' behavioral cues, thus enhancing mother-newborn interactions.