Prenatal Family Dynamics
Prenatal Family Dynamics

Author: Regina Kuersten-Hogan

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2021-02-01

Total Pages: 400

ISBN-13: 3030519880

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This book examines family interactions and relationships during the transition to parenthood. It offers a unique integration of different lines of research on prenatal family dynamics contributed by leading family researchers in North America and Europe who use observational approaches to study emergent family processes. The book explores prenatal dynamics in diverse families, including adolescent couples, same-sex couples, couples experiencing infertility, and couples expecting their second child. The introduction, anchored in family systems and structural theories, provides an overview of challenges couples commonly experience during the transition to parenthood and details prenatal family processes that predict postpartum adjustment in families. This sets the stage for subsequent chapters by emphasizing unparalleled windows into prenatal family dynamics provided by direct observation. Initial chapters focus on predictors of prenatal interactions and partners’ representations of parenthood. Subsequent chapters describe original research on prebirth couple interactions and the coparenting relationship emerging during pregnancy. The volume includes several studies that rely on innovative research designs using observations of simulated couple encounters with their newborn, represented by a life-sized infant doll. The book concludes with a review of recent prenatal intervention programs designed to improve interpersonal and coparenting relationships of married and unmarried couples. The volume offers recommendations for future research on prenatal family dynamics, including suggestions for methodological advances, exploration of prenatal risk factors, expansion of conceptual models to incorporate culturally-meaningful coparents besides mothers and fathers, and further focus on prenatal intervention programs. This book is an essential resource for researchers, clinicians and professionals, and graduate students in the fields of infant mental health/early child development, family studies, pediatrics, developmental psychology, public health, social work, and early childhood education.

The Psychology of Prenatal Development
The Psychology of Prenatal Development

Author: Klaus Evertz

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2024-11-22

Total Pages: 201

ISBN-13: 1040252443

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This important book introduces the basics of prenatal psychology and works through the current scientific findings in the psychology and psychosomatics of pregnancy and birth. Through exploring bio-psycho-social relationships, as well as historical and cultural perspectives, this interdisciplinary approach easily breaks down specialist discussions into easy-to-understand concepts. Bridging the gap between foetal programming and psychological research and practice, this accessible book presents the history of the field and the basic concepts of prenatal development before exploring the behavioural dimensions of life before, during, and immediately after birth. Topics include sensory and emotional development in the womb, perception and brain development, the influence of environmental factors and prenatal imprinting and long-term effects. The author also delves into the concept of attachment and support and analyses body symptoms, sensations, feelings and inner images in dreams and imaginations, through the role of art creations and biographical narratives. As a whole, this book provides a therapeutic synopsis of the entire existence, which begins with conception. Explaining how experiences in the prenatal period influence basic psychological imprints across the lifespan, this book is an essential resource for students in a wide range of interrelated disciplines, including developmental psychology, paediatric medicine, neuroscience, infancy and early child development, nursing, social work and early childhood education. It may also be of interest to researchers, clinicians and related professionals.

Vibrant and Healthy Kids
Vibrant and Healthy Kids

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2019-12-27

Total Pages: 621

ISBN-13: 0309493382

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Children are the foundation of the United States, and supporting them is a key component of building a successful future. However, millions of children face health inequities that compromise their development, well-being, and long-term outcomes, despite substantial scientific evidence about how those adversities contribute to poor health. Advancements in neurobiological and socio-behavioral science show that critical biological systems develop in the prenatal through early childhood periods, and neurobiological development is extremely responsive to environmental influences during these stages. Consequently, social, economic, cultural, and environmental factors significantly affect a child's health ecosystem and ability to thrive throughout adulthood. Vibrant and Healthy Kids: Aligning Science, Practice, and Policy to Advance Health Equity builds upon and updates research from Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity (2017) and From Neurons to Neighborhoods: The Science of Early Childhood Development (2000). This report provides a brief overview of stressors that affect childhood development and health, a framework for applying current brain and development science to the real world, a roadmap for implementing tailored interventions, and recommendations about improving systems to better align with our understanding of the significant impact of health equity.

Parenting Matters
Parenting Matters

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2016-11-21

Total Pages: 525

ISBN-13: 0309388570

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Decades of research have demonstrated that the parent-child dyad and the environment of the familyâ€"which includes all primary caregiversâ€"are at the foundation of children's well- being and healthy development. From birth, children are learning and rely on parents and the other caregivers in their lives to protect and care for them. The impact of parents may never be greater than during the earliest years of life, when a child's brain is rapidly developing and when nearly all of her or his experiences are created and shaped by parents and the family environment. Parents help children build and refine their knowledge and skills, charting a trajectory for their health and well-being during childhood and beyond. The experience of parenting also impacts parents themselves. For instance, parenting can enrich and give focus to parents' lives; generate stress or calm; and create any number of emotions, including feelings of happiness, sadness, fulfillment, and anger. Parenting of young children today takes place in the context of significant ongoing developments. These include: a rapidly growing body of science on early childhood, increases in funding for programs and services for families, changing demographics of the U.S. population, and greater diversity of family structure. Additionally, parenting is increasingly being shaped by technology and increased access to information about parenting. Parenting Matters identifies parenting knowledge, attitudes, and practices associated with positive developmental outcomes in children ages 0-8; universal/preventive and targeted strategies used in a variety of settings that have been effective with parents of young children and that support the identified knowledge, attitudes, and practices; and barriers to and facilitators for parents' use of practices that lead to healthy child outcomes as well as their participation in effective programs and services. This report makes recommendations directed at an array of stakeholders, for promoting the wide-scale adoption of effective programs and services for parents and on areas that warrant further research to inform policy and practice. It is meant to serve as a roadmap for the future of parenting policy, research, and practice in the United States.

Vascular Biology of the Placenta
Vascular Biology of the Placenta

Author: Yuping Wang

Publisher: Biota Publishing

Published: 2017-06-23

Total Pages: 126

ISBN-13: 1615047514

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The placenta is an organ that connects the developing fetus to the uterine wall, thereby allowing nutrient uptake, waste elimination, and gas exchange via the mother's blood supply. Proper vascular development in the placenta is fundamental to ensuring a healthy fetus and successful pregnancy. This book provides an up-to-date summary and synthesis of knowledge regarding placental vascular biology and discusses the relevance of this vascular bed to the functions of the human placenta.

Communities in Action
Communities in Action

Author: National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2017-04-27

Total Pages: 583

ISBN-13: 0309452961

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In the United States, some populations suffer from far greater disparities in health than others. Those disparities are caused not only by fundamental differences in health status across segments of the population, but also because of inequities in factors that impact health status, so-called determinants of health. Only part of an individual's health status depends on his or her behavior and choice; community-wide problems like poverty, unemployment, poor education, inadequate housing, poor public transportation, interpersonal violence, and decaying neighborhoods also contribute to health inequities, as well as the historic and ongoing interplay of structures, policies, and norms that shape lives. When these factors are not optimal in a community, it does not mean they are intractable: such inequities can be mitigated by social policies that can shape health in powerful ways. Communities in Action: Pathways to Health Equity seeks to delineate the causes of and the solutions to health inequities in the United States. This report focuses on what communities can do to promote health equity, what actions are needed by the many and varied stakeholders that are part of communities or support them, as well as the root causes and structural barriers that need to be overcome.

Risking the Future
Risking the Future

Author: Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 1987-02-01

Total Pages: 352

ISBN-13: 0309036984

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More than 1 million teenage girls in the United States become pregnant each year; nearly half give birth. Why do these young people, who are hardly more than children themselves, become parents? This volume reviews in detail the trends in and consequences of teenage sexual behavior and offers thoughtful insights on the issues of sexual initiation, contraception, pregnancy, abortion, adoption, and the well-being of adolescent families. It provides a systematic assessment of the impact of various programmatic approaches, both preventive and ameliorative, in light of the growing scientific understanding of the topic.

Subject Relations
Subject Relations

Author: Naomi G . Rucker

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2018-10-24

Total Pages: 212

ISBN-13: 1317795644

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Traditional psychoanalysis views relationships as forged through individual drives--a satisfaction and fulfillment of needs and desires. Rucker and Lombardi contend, however, that all relationships cannot be explained so simply; rather, they argue that human relationships carry meanings which cannot be reduced solely to the psychic contributions of each of the individuals involved. Instead, Subject Relations discusses the existence of a related unconscious rooted in mutual subjective experience. The authors cite numerous clinical examples that show how the unconscious material generated by human interrelatedness comes to light. Drawing on the work of Matte-Blanco as well as traditional object relations theorists such as Melanie Klein, D.W. Winnicott, and Thomas Ogden, the authors examine how identifications that exist through unconscious processes manifest themselves in psychoanalytic theory and practice.