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Objective: Breastfeeding can be challenging for new mothers. Women with high breastfeeding self-efficacy are more likely to breastfeed with confidence and are more likely to succeed in breastfeeding. The aim of this prospective longitudinal study was to test whether breastfeeding self-efficacy and breastfeeding experiences were related to trajectories of self-efficacy in the parenting domain during the transition to parenthood. Materials and Methods: A group of 1,091 primiparous women completed questionnaires at 32 weeks of gestation (maternal self-efficacy) and 3 months after giving birth (maternal self-efficacy, breastfeeding self-efficacy, and breastfeeding experiences). Only the women who started breastfeeding and completed questionnaires at both time points were included in the analyses ( N  = 817). Results: High breastfeeding self-efficacy significantly predicted increased maternal self-efficacy through the transition to parenthood. A successful breastfeeding experience fully explained this effect. Conclusion: The mediating effect of positive breastfeeding experiences on the relationship of breastfeeding self-efficacy and the change of maternal self-efficacy during the transition to parenthood implies breastfeeding to be an early target to enhance maternal self-efficacy. By pointing out breastfeeding as a genuine challenge during prenatal maternity courses, it might prepare mothers for one of their first experiences of parenthood. As a result, successful breastfeeding could be a steppingstone from positive prenatal expectations to growing confidence as a parent.

Mothers with a history of institutional care in adolescence are often involved in high-conflict partner relationships, which may undermine relationships with children and confidence in oneself as a parent. Not all mothers think of themselves as bad parents under these circumstances. We turned to psychological resources as an explanation, focusing on mothers' trait self-control. The negative association between family conflict and parenting self-efficacy was tested for moderation by self-control among 104 mothers with a history of institutionalization for behavioral problems and delinquency during adolescence. We found a negative association between current family conflict and parenting self-efficacy among mothers with low self-control, and no significant association among mothers with high self-control. This study draws attention to the needs of high-risk mothers in their parenting role and demonstrates that self-control is a potential resource for mothers to balance the load presented by conflict in their families. The findings suggest new avenues for intervention.

The objective of this study was to explore how maternal mood during pregnancy, i.e., general anxiety, pregnancy-specific anxiety, and depression predicted parenting stress 3 months after giving birth, thereby shaping the child's early postnatal environmental circumstances. To this end, data were used from 1073 women participating in the Dutch longitudinal cohort Generations 2 , which studies first-time pregnant mothers during pregnancy and across the transition to parenthood. Women filled out the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI), Pregnancy-Related Anxiety Questionnaire-revised (PRAQ-R), and Beck Depression Index (BDI) three times during pregnancy: at 12, 22, and 32 weeks gestational age. Three months postpartum, a parenting stress questionnaire was filled out yielding seven different parenting constructs. Latent scores were computed for each of the repeatedly measured maternal mood variables with Mplus and parenting stress constructs were simultaneously regressed on these latent scores. Results showed that trait anxiety and pregnancy-specific anxiety were uniquely related to almost all parenting stress constructs, taking depression into account. Early prevention and intervention to reduce maternal anxiety in pregnancy could hold the key for a more advantageous trajectory of early postnatal parenting.

Twenty years ago, meta-analytic results (k = 19) confirmed the association between caregiver attachment representations and child-caregiver attachment (Van IJzendoorn, 1995). A test of caregiver sensitivity as the mechanism behind this intergenerational transmission showed an intriguing "transmission gap." Since then, the intergenerational transmission of attachment and the transmission gap have been studied extensively, and now extend to diverse populations from all over the globe. Two decades later, the current review revisited the effect sizes of intergenerational transmission, the heterogeneity of the transmission effects, and the size of the transmission gap. Analyses were carried out with a total of 95 samples (total N = 4,819). All analyses confirmed intergenerational transmission of attachment, with larger effect sizes for secure-autonomous transmission (r = .31) than for unresolved transmission (r = .21), albeit with significantly smaller effect sizes than 2 decades earlier (r = .47 and r = .31, respectively). Effect sizes were moderated by risk status of the sample, biological relatedness of child-caregiver dyads, and age of the children. Multivariate moderator analyses showed that unpublished and more recent studies had smaller effect sizes than published and older studies. Path analyses showed that the transmission could not be fully explained by caregiver sensitivity, with more recent studies narrowing but not bridging the "transmission gap." Implications for attachment theory as well as future directions for research are discussed., ((c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved).)

This study tested experimentally whether the combination of a history of childhood abuse and confrontation with difficult infant temperament is associated with negative changes in parenting self-efficacy. First-time pregnant women (N = 243) participated in the Adult Attachment Interview, which was used to assess the occurrence of abuse by parents in childhood and unresolved representations, and completed a task asking them to respond to infant cries. Sixty of the 243 participants (25%) experienced childhood abuse, mostly physical or sexual. The task simulated infant temperamental difficulty by manipulating soothing success in order to reflect an easy-to-soothe (80% soothing success) and a difficult-to-soothe infant (20% soothing success). Both after baseline and after each of the two stimulus series women assessed their parenting self-efficacy. Women who reported childhood abuse did not differ from women who reported no childhood abuse in parenting self-efficacy at baseline or in response to the easy-to-soothe infant (relative to baseline), but decreased more in parenting self-efficacy following the difficult-to-soothe infant. Effects did not vary according to resolution of trauma. These findings suggest that in response to infant temperamental difficulty, women who experienced childhood abuse may more easily lose confidence in their parenting abilities, which underlines the importance of preparing at-risk women for the possible challenges that come along with parenthood.

Caring for infants with negative reactive temperament may tax parents' confidence in their caregiving ability, or parenting self-efficacy (PSE). This may happen in particular in parents who interpret these signals as negative feedback on their performance. To test this hypothesis, 179 first-time pregnant women were presented a caregiving simulation that provided positive and negative feedback on their attempts to comfort a crying baby. According to their PSE resilience to negative feedback during the task, they were grouped in a high resilient and low resilient group. PSE was followed up at 32 weeks of pregnancy and 3 and 12 months after birth, while perceived temperament of the child was assessed at 3 and 12 months after birth. Results showed that among women with low resilience against negative feedback, perceived negative temperament was negatively associated with PSE at 3 months, whereas no such association was observed among women with high resilience against negative feedback. Implications of the concept of resilience for the study of PSE are discussed., (© 2015 The British Psychological Society.)

The aim of the study was to examine parenting self-efficacy in relation to depressive and anxiety symptoms during pregnancy. Five hundred thirty-three first-time pregnant women completed questionnaires at 12, 22, and 32 weeks of pregnancy that measure parenting self-efficacy, anxiety, and depressive symptoms. Parenting self-efficacy increased slightly but significantly over the course of pregnancy. Higher levels of depressive symptoms as well as state and trait anxiety symptoms were related to lower expectations of parenting self-efficacy at all time points, but only anxiety symptoms uniquely predicted parenting self-efficacy. Higher levels of anxiety symptoms in the first trimester predicted less positive change in parenting self-efficacy over the course of pregnancy, but depressive symptoms did not when anxiety levels were taken into account. The findings highlight the role of antenatal anxiety symptoms as a predictor of suboptimal preparation for the parenting role in first-time-expecting mothers. Possible explanations and implications for clinical practice are briefly discussed., (© 2013 Michigan Association for Infant Mental Health.)

Infant temperamental characteristics have been found associated with decreasing parenting self-efficacy (PSE) during the first year after birth, which has been generally interpreted as a child effect on the parent. To test direction of effects, PSE was assessed during the third trimester of pregnancy and twice after birth together with perceived infant temperament in a group of first-time pregnant women (N = 616). Cross-lagged path analysis showed that PSE, even when assessed prior to birth, predicted characteristics of infant negative temperament. Infant negative temperamental characteristics were concurrently, but not prospectively, associated with decreased PSE. These findings indicate that perceptions of infant temperament may partly be shaped by parents' self-perception, rather than the other way around.