Highlights
- •Reflective functioning is thought to be an essential component of sensitive parenting, but not well studied or understood in pregnant and parenting teens.
- •In this qualitative study, guided by interpretive description, pregnant teens' experiences of pregnancy and thoughts about parenting were complicated by their own developmental challenges and their complex social environments.
- •Most young women in this study relied upon family for support, yet had difficult and often ambivalent relationships with partners.
Purpose
Reflective functioning (RF), the capacity to envision thoughts, feelings, needs and
intentions within the self and others, is thought to be central to sensitive parenting,
yet this capacity has been unexamined among pregnant adolescents. We explored how
RF was related to the emotional experience of adolescent pregnancy.
Design and Methods
This qualitative study was guided by interpretive description. Participants were 30
Latina and African-American adolescents (mean age 17.7 + 1.5 years) residing in a low-income urban community. All adolescents were interviewed
with the Pregnancy Interview (a 22 question semi-structured interview) in their third
trimester of pregnancy. Interview transcripts had been previously coded for levels
of RF (1–9 with higher levels denoting higher reflectiveness), and this secondary
analysis focused on the teens' experience of pregnancy and their emerging reflective
capacities. We used a priori and inductive coding with all interviews and developed
patterns and themes.
Results
These interviews provided an in-depth understanding of the complex adolescent emotional
experiences of pregnancy. We identified five themes that create a picture of how the
participants reflected upon their pregnancies, unborn babies, emerging parental roles,
and complicated relationships with family and partners.
Conclusions and Practice Implications
Adolescent developmental issues and harsh family and neighborhood environments permeated
the teens' experience of pregnancy and limited capacity for RF. Understanding distinctive
features of RF in pregnant adolescents may contribute to developing conceptual models
and tailored clinical approaches for enhancing parental reflectiveness and sensitivity
in these vulnerable young women as they enter into the transition to parenthood.
Key words
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Article info
Publication history
Published online: January 12, 2016
Accepted:
November 15,
2015
Received in revised form:
November 13,
2015
Received:
June 10,
2015
Identification
Copyright
© 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
