Dyadic and triadic interactions during the infant's first year.

Backgroud: The transition to parenthood is a phase of the family development, in wich the individual’s organization, couple’s and intergenerazitional’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 has two main aims: 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 attachment’s representation. Method: 49 non-referred primiparous families werw recruited at child-birth courses 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) in pre e post-natal version, Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976) and Attachment Style Questionnaire (Feeney, Noller, Hanrahan, 1994) and Adult Attachment Interview (George, Kaplan & Main, 1985). Results: Aim 1. The preliminary analysis from pregnancy to 9th month of infant show that: a) couples perceive themselves satisfied on the relation’s quality. During the observational phases there is an effect of time in the degree of marital satisfaction perceived by the couple (F(4.54, 3), p< .005) ; b) There is an increase of 15,5 point in each observational phases of the quality of triadic interaction from pregnancy to 9 months of the infant. Aim 2. The quality of triadic interaction, in pregnancy, are associated with high levels of marital satisfaction. Significant correlation between Coherence of mind mean scores and Cooperation score during LTP prenatal (r = .384; p = .006). Conclusions: the marital relationship perceived as satisfactory is linked with a good quality of co-parenting interactions, from pregnancy to 9 months of infant. Forthcoming analyses will provide a comprehensive model to understand the developmental trajectories of family life in the first year of the infant.