Browsing by Subject "isän ja vauvan vuorovaikutus"

Objective. Preterm birth can cause challenges for early interaction between parent and infant. Early interaction is the basis for language and cognitive development, so parents play an essential part in supporting the development of their preterm child. Very little research of early interaction has been made from the fathers' point of view. The aim of this study was to depict fathers' experiences of early interaction with their prematurely born infants and examine the effect premature birth has on fatherhood. Participants and methods. The participants were four fathers of prematurely born infants and eight fathers of full-term infants. The prematurely born children were born between 30+4–33+6 weeks of gestation and weighed between 1 400–2 900 grams at birth. At the time of the study the premature infants were between 2–7 months of corrected age. The full-term children were between 1–6 months of age at the time of the study. The method of this study was semi-structured interview. The themes were composed for this study, based on previous research on premature birth, parenthood and early interaction. A pilot interview was carried out prior to the research interviews. The research interviews were conducted in autumn 2016. A theory-based content analysis and theme identification was carried out. Results and conclusions. The fathers described feelings of stress and anxiety, but felt that most of the support available for parents of premature children was focused on the mothers. The fathers' experiences differed most with the time spent in the hospital, the perceived fragility and passivity of the child, the concern over the well-being of the mother and the strain of childcare. Similar types of play were used in both groups. The premature infants had more variation in sleep and eye-contact. The results indicate there should be more support available for the fathers of prematurely born children.