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`Top-of-the-Head' Descriptions of Baby and Self: Links to Reported Health Behaviors and Social Context in Early Pregnancy

University of California, San Francisco

Nancy E. Adler

University of California, San Francisco

This research investigated pregnant women's spontaneous descriptions of their babies and themselves as mothers early in pregnancy as related to prenatal health behaviors, family background characteristics and women's work status. In semi-structured interviews, 59 married women in their 4th month of pregnancy described the fetus, the baby after birth, and themselves as mothers to the expected child. Consistent with construct accessibility theory and recent representation based models of parenting, the amount and kinds of content that women used to describe their babies and themselves as mothers varied systematically as a function of women's prenatal health behaviors, parity and marital adjustment. Suggestive evidence also was found for a relationship between the content of women's descriptions of themselves as mothers and women's work status. The authors discuss clinical and methodological implications of the findings.

Key Words: construct accessibility • parents' representations • prenatal health behavior

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