Couple attachment and primary family interactions in the child's first year.

Backgroud: The transition to parenthood is a phase of the family development, in wich the individual’s organization, couple’s and intergenerational’s relationships need to be renegotiated on representational and interactive level. On this way, it is necessary to adopt a contextual perspective to investigate the family development: partner’s satisfactions of the couple, the construction of relationship in the adult age and the acquisition of parent role. The study investigate a) the degree of marital satisfaction perceived by the couple and the quality of triadic family interactions; b) the associations between triadic family interactions, the degree of marital satisfaction and the quality of adult attachment’s representation. Method: 35 families took part to the research at 7 month of pregnancy at 4 and 9 month after child’s birth. The measures used are the Losanna Trilogue Play (Fivaz-Depeursige, Corboz-Warnery, 1999), Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976) and Attachment Style Questionnaire (Feeney, Noller, Hanrahan, 1994). Results: the preliminary analysis from pregnancy to 4th month of child show that: a) couples perceive themselves satisfied on the relation’s quality during the time; the quality of triadic interaction are stable from pregnancy to 4 months of the child; b) the quality of triadic interaction, in pregnancy, are associated with high levels of marital satisfaction. Conclusions: the marital relationship perceived as satisfactory is linked with a good quality of co-parenting interactions, from pregnancy to 4 months of child. Forthcoming analyses will provide a comprehensive model to understand the developmental trajectories of family life in the first year of the child.