Many have very little understanding of infant development, study finds

CHICAGO - Nearly one third of U.S. parents know astonishingly little about typical development of infants, and this unawareness can lack their babies of much needed stimulation for mental growth, researchers said on Sunday.

“There are so many parenting books teaching people what to expect when they’re pregnant,” said Dr. Heather Paradis, University of Rochester Medical Center in New York.

“But once a baby is born, a large number of parents are not only unsure of what to anticipate as their child develops, but are also uncertain of when, how or how much they are to help their babies reach various milestones, such as talking, grabbing, discerning right from wrong, or even potty-training,” said Paradis, who describe her findings at Pediatric Academic Society meeting in Honolulu. She and her colleagues analyzed parenting know-how which based on a sample of parents representing more than 10,000 babies aged 9-month-old.

These parents filled a questionnaire. Survey was designed to see that which parents have knowledge about their babies and which have not. The survey includes question like, “Should a 1-year-old child be able to tell between rights and wrong?” and “Should a 1-year-old child be ready to begin toilet-training?”
The correct answer of both the question is no. Parents who got four or fewer correct answers (out of eleven) were marked to have low parenting knowledge. Researchers used a comparison between surveys and a videotaped analysis of the same families teaching their child a new task, such as playing with blocks.
They also keep in view the information provided by the parents about how they involve their children in healthy activities, such as reading books, singing songs or telling stories.

They found that 31.2 % of the parents had a least knowledge about what to expect from their child, and this was strongly concerned with lower parental education level and income.

“The fact that almost a third of parents could only answer four out of eleven questions correctly was very surprising to us,” Paradis said in a telephonic interview.

The researchers also over come the factors like the mother’s age, education, income and mental state, even then they found that a number of parents were having unrealistic approach about their baby’s development. That had a negative effect on the parent-child relationship. “Parents who had less knowledge had less quality interaction with their kids,” according to Paradis.

She further said that “one way to address the problem is to urge pediatricians to educate parents during well-baby visits.”

“My hope for pediatricians is that, we are able to come up with some positive approaches to educating parents in the office setting about their baby’s development,” she said.
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