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The Interplay Between Early Father Involvement and Neonatal Medical Risk in the Prediction of Infant Neurodevelopment

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Abstract

The current study examines the association between early father involvement and infant neurodevelopment, and whether neonatal medical risk moderates this association. Data from approximately 6000 fathers and their children were obtained from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study: Birth Cohort (ECLS-B). Hierarchical regression was employed to analyze the data. The findings reveal that the association between early father involvement and infant neurodevelopment is contingent on both the timing of involvement (i.e., prenatal/perinatal or infancy) and offspring medical status at birth. The neurodevelopment of medically at-risk neonates was enhanced when fathers were involved during the gestational period and at the time of their birth. This relationship was not detected, however, in the case of infants who did not experience medical risks as neonates. Neonatal medical risk appears to be an important moderating factor in the link between father involvement during pregnancy and childbirth and infant neurodevelopment. Practitioners should continue to make efforts to involve fathers during gestation and childbirth. The findings of the present study suggest that doing so may protect against neurodevelopmental delays in neonates with medical risks.

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Notes

  1. Results of the present study are identical when removing the small number of subjects with more extreme values on the age variable.

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    Dylan B. Jackson

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Research employing the ECLS-B data is supported by the Institute of Education Sciences and its sponsoring agencies, who provided the author with access to the ECLS-B data.

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The author declares no conflict of interest.

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This research was conducted with the approval of the University of Texas at San Antonio Institutional Review Board (Human Subjects). All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Jackson, D.B. The Interplay Between Early Father Involvement and Neonatal Medical Risk in the Prediction of Infant Neurodevelopment. Prev Sci 18, 106–115 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-016-0734-4

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