Male Pregnancy Intendedness and Children's Mental Proficiency and Attachment Security During Toddlerhood

Using a sample of biological resident fathers and their children from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) 9-and 24-month surveys (N = 5,300), this study examines associations and the direct and indirect pathways through which men's pregnancy intentions influence toddlers' mental proficiency and attachment security. Findings indicate that unwanted and mistimed pregnancies for fathers had negative consequences for toddlers' mental proficiency and attachment security. Additionally, men's pregnancy intentions were found to work indirectly through lower prenatal behaviors and father engagement and greater mother-father relationship conflict to negatively influence toddlers' mental proficiency. Men's pregnancy intentions also worked indirectly through greater relationship conflict and higher father involvement to influence attachment security. Key Words: development or outcomes, early childhood, father-child relations, pregnancy. Over the past two decades, significant attention has been paid to women's pregnancy intentions (i.e., attitudes about the wantedness of a pregnancy; Pulley, Klerman, Tang, & Baker, 2002). A clear deficit exists in this existing body of research, however, which has primarily focused on mothers while ignoring the role of men's pregnancy intentions. Understanding the role of men's pregnancy intentions and their consequences is important for various reasons. First is the finding that the context within which a birth occurs may have implications for fathers' commitment and involvement over time (Bronte-Tinkew, Ryan, Carrano, & Moore, 2007). Second is the growing body of research suggesting a positive influence of fathers' involvement on child outcomes (Lamb, 1987; Parke, 2002), as recent research demonstrates that fathers' pregnancy intentions may affect infant well-being, beyond that of mothers' intentions (Korenman, Kaestner, & Joyce, 2002). Third, unintended childbearing (among women) has traditionally been linked to multiple dimensions of children's physical health, but research has not focused on outcomes in other developmental domains (Axinn, Barber, & Thornton, 1998; Brown & Eisenberg, 1995), and although the main effects of negative pregnancy intentions have generally been found to be unfavorable for children, prior research has not thoroughly explored the role of other mediating family processes in influencing such outcomes. In light of gaps in existing research, we use nationally representative longitudinal data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study Birth Cohort 9- and 24-month surveys to address two research questions: (a) Are men's pregnancy intentions associated with mental proficiency and attachment security outcomes for their young children during toddlerhood and are these associations mediated by men's prenatal behaviors, the quality of the father-mother relationship, and post-birth father involvement (accounting for mother's pregnancy intentions)? (b) Do associations between father's pregnancy intentions and children's mental proficiency and attachment security differ by mother's pregnancy intentions? We build on an existing body of research that has primarily focused on women by using nationally representative longitudinal data on children and their fathers to examine a fully articulated model of the linkages between male pregnancy intentions and their implications for children's early mental proficiency and attachment security (while accounting for female pregnancy intentions). We focus specifically on infancy and toddlerhood because these are the periods when children advance rapidly in language and other symbolic competencies and form their first relationships with caregivers (fathers and mothers). Our analyses also focus on resident fathers because the patterns and predictors of pregnancy intentions as well as father involvement are structurally different for resident fathers versus nonresident fathers. Moreover, measures of key family processes were not collected for nonresident fathers. …