Resident Fathers' Pregnancy Intentions, Prenatal Behaviors, and Links to Involvement With Infants

Using data from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort, 9-month resident father surveys (N = 6,816), this paper examines the association between male pregnancy intentions, prenatal behaviors, and postbirth father involvement. Findings indicate that prenatal behaviors are associated with five domains of father involvement. Men who did not want the pregnancy are less likely to exhibit paternal warmth following the birth, whereas men who wanted the pregnancy sooner than it occurred are more likely to exhibit nurturing behaviors. The influence of fathers' pregnancy intentions and prenatal behaviors on postbirth involvement is for the most part not dependent on child gender. Findings suggest that prenatal programs that encourage fathers to actively participate in the pregnancy may be beneficial to later child well-being. Key Words: child development, father-child relations, fatherhood, infancy, pregnancy. Although a small body of research suggests that men's pregnancy intentions and prenatal behaviors may have implications for their levels of involvement with children (McLanahan et al., 2001), few studies have examined how resident men's intentions and behaviors prior to the birth of a child shape their postbirth fathering behaviors. An understanding of this issue is important given that the transition to fatherhood is marked with great anticipation and uncertainty and represents an ideal opportunity to draw men more actively into parenting (Woodsworth, Belsky, & Cmic, 1996). Available research on fathers' pregnancy intentions and prenatal behaviors, however, is scant and suffers from several limitations. First, most research on fathers relies upon mother reports of fathers' intendedness as a proxy for men's attitudes. second, few studies that examine fathers' attitudes have been conducted witii large, representative, diverse samples of fathers (Cherlin & Griffith, 1998). Given the shortcomings of existing research, using a sample of resident fathers of 9-month old infants in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort (ECLS-B) study, we pose two research questions: (a) What is the association between resident men's pregnancy intentions and behaviors and postbirth fathering behaviors? and (b) Does the association between resident fathers' pregnancy intentions and behaviors and postbirth fathering differ according to the gender of the child? Pregnancy intentions refer to men's feelings about the pregnancies of their partners. These pregnancies can be intended (planned at the time of conception), mistimed (not wanted at the time of conception but wanted eventuady), or unwanted (not wanted at the time of conception or ever in the future). Pregnancy intentions are important to examine because the ability of a father to provide positive parenting (i.e., positive involvement with one's child) may be strongly associated with whether the pregnancy was intended at conception (Brown & Eisenberg, 1995). Unintended fatherhood may adversely affect the quantity and quality of a father's involvement in the child's life (Brown & Eisenberg). Children resulting from unwanted pregnancies may face reduced parental support, poorer quality parent-child relationships, more authoritarian parenting styles, and parental rejection (Baydar, 1995). The majority of the available literature on pregnancy intentions, however, draws from the mother's perspective and only rarely are data on pregnancy intentions collected directly from fathers. Men's prenatal behaviors are defined as activities with their partners during pregnancy (e.g., discussed the pregnancy, visited the doctor with partner for prenatal care, attended childbirth classes) and activities with the chdd during and around the time of birth (i.e., present at chdd's birth, visited the child in the hospital, held the baby, and established paternity). Prenatal behaviors on the part of fathers may be indicative of their beliefs and perceptions of the father role. …