BACKGROUND Considering that adolescent mothers may be more vulnerable to discontinuing exclusive breastfeeding (EBF) before 6 months and that their mothers may exert a negative influence on this practice, this study was conducted with the objective of evaluating the efficacy of breastfeeding counselling for adolescent mothers and their mothers in increasing EBF duration. METHODS A clinical tr...

PURPOSE Despite a substantial amount of evidence on breastfeeding among non-adolescent mothers, research and strategies uniquely designed to target adolescent mothers are critical because their rates of breastfeeding are disproportionately low and their transition to parenthood is often unlike that of older mothers. Literature to date, however, offers limited evidence for designing effective in...

Adolescents' behavior is often a matter of concern, given their increased likelihood of enacting antisocial behaviors, which cause disruptions in the social order and are potentially harmful for the adolescents themselves and for the people around them. In this six-wave longitudinal study we sought to examine the interplay among maternal empathy, multiple indicators of mother-adolescent relatio...

Although rates of teen pregnancy have declined in the United States in recent years (Alan Guttmacher Institute, 1999), depression rates among low-income teen mothers suggest that adolescent childbearing is still an important social issue. Depression among adolescent mothers is related to rapid repeat pregnancy (Gilmore et al, 1997), less economic success (Danzinger et al., 2000), and poor physi...

BACKGROUND Given that mothers play a role in the sexual education of their daughters, it is important to understand their views of sexual health and related programs. This study was aimed at exploring mothers' perspectives regarding sexual health education for their adolescent daughters in Mahshahr, Iran. METHODS In this qualitative study, in-depth interviews with ten key informants and five ...

OBJECTIVE To assess whether lesbian mothers of 17-year-old adolescents conceived through donor insemination are satisfied with their choice of a known, open-identity, or unknown sperm donor and whether the mothers' satisfaction is associated with psychological health problems in the index adolescent offspring. DESIGN Mixed-method study. SETTING Not applicable. PATIENT(S) One hundred twent...

The current study investigated how fathering behaviors (acceptance, rejection, monitoring, consistent discipline, and involvement) are related to preadolescent adjustment in Mexican American and European American stepfamilies and intact families. Cross-sectional data from 393 7th graders, their schoolteachers, and parents were used to examine links between different dimensions of fathering and ...

This 3-year, multi-informant study examined whether youths' perceptions of parental privacy invasion predicted lower parental knowledge over time, as a function of increased adolescent secrecy. Participants were 497 Dutch adolescents (Time 1 M = 13 years, SD = 0.5; 57% boys) and both parents. Higher youth-reported invasion predicted lower father- and mother-reported knowledge 1 year later. A li...

K E Y WORDS: Adolescent Mothers; Biological Fathers; Family Life. Adolescent birth rates have increased every year since 1987, after remaining rather stable or falling throughout the earlier decades. A recent report cites that there were 62 births to every 1000 women aged 15-19; one-fourth of African-American women had their first birth before they reached age 19 (Child Trends, 1994). High teen...

BACKGROUND Parents of children with developmental disabilities (DD) face greater caregiving demands than parents of children without DD. There is considerable variability in parents' adjustment to raising a child with DD, however. In line with a strengths-based approach, this study explores coping strategies as potential mechanisms of resilience among mothers of adolescents with DD. This study ...