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Couples Becoming Parents

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Clinical Guide to Helping New Parents

Part of the book series: Springer Series on Couples and Health ((SSCH))

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Abstract

The transition to parenthood brings a range of life changes for all couples. Many couples struggle to adapt to parenthood and experience declines in their couple relationship satisfaction. This chapter reviews the literature on the most common challenges for new parent couples, and the factors that put particular couples at risk of struggling to adapt to parenthood. This chapter also includes a review of brief couple education programs that aim to help adaptation to parenthood, and the research evaluating such programs. Finally, we provide an overview of the Couple CARE for Parents (CPP) program, an evidence-based approach to assisting couples that forms the focus of the current book. There are six units in CPP, and they are described in detail in each of the remaining six chapters of the current book.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Most of our work has been with heterosexual parent couples, but we believe almost all of the guidance in this book is potentially useful to Gay and Lesbian couples raising infants. A small but important proportion of new parents are not in a relationship with a partner. They also could benefit from assistance to adjust to parenthood. However, because single parents’ needs are somewhat different from couples, we focus this book on the most common arrangement of a couple adjusting to parenthood.

  2. 2.

    A meta-analysis is a way of combining statistically the results of multiple studies and it provides an estimate of the average effect across studies. Effect sizes are often classified as small, moderate, or large. (The statistical definition of effect sizes are: small is d = 0.3 SD, moderate is 0.6 SD, and large is 0.8 SD.)

  3. 3.

    In addition to providing an estimate of the average effect across multiple studies, meta-analysis also can be used to estimate statistically what characteristics of a program influence how much effect that program has.

  4. 4.

    The changes in satisfaction across time can be described statistically as a trajectory, and a curvilinear trajectory is when change begins in one direction and the rate or direction of change alters across time. (For example, if couples’ satisfaction declines from pre-relationship education to post-relationship education but then starts to increase later.) Complex curvilinear change requires a lot of data points to estimate accurately, and hence this study with a small sample of couples and a complex pattern of findings needs to be interpreted cautiously.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, QLD, Australia

    W. Kim Halford

  2. Relationships Australia, Brisbane, QLD, Australia

    Jemima Petch

  3. Griffith University, Gold Coast, QLD, Australia

    Debra Creedy

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  2. Jemima Petch
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Halford, W.K., Petch, J., Creedy, D. (2015). Couples Becoming Parents. In: Clinical Guide to Helping New Parents. Springer Series on Couples and Health. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-1613-9_1

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