Changes in the Sense of Family among Couples having their First Child

Abstract

Seventy-three couples expecting their first child were asked to respond in writing to open-ended questions about their experience of pregnancy three times during pregnancy and once at one month postpartum. Their responses were coded for the mention of five family-related issues: the transition from `couple' to `family', changed closeness with spouse, changed involvement with extended family, male partner's positive involvement with fathering, and female partner's conflict between job and family. The first four of these issues were mentioned with relatively high frequency, with, for example, more than 60 percent of all respondents stating that the pregnancy had increased their closeness to their spouse. In contrast, the issue of women's potential conflict between job and family was mentioned relatively less frequently, by just under one-fifth of the women in the sample. The results lend support to the notion that first pregnancy is associated with an increased focus on family issues for both women and men, and represents a developmental process not only in the individual parents but in the family itself.