Image of the Child in Expectant Mothers

One of the most important aspects of readiness for motherhood in a pregnant woman is well-developed image of her child. Development of an image of the child in pregnancy has specific features in contrast with the other ways of development of an image of a significant Other, described in psychology. This article deals with the ideas on development of an image of the child elaborated by contemporary Russian psychologists. It is illustrated with drawings of expectant mothers - the research participants.

One of the most important aspects of readiness for motherhood in a pregnant woman is a well-developed image of her child. Mother-infant interactions have their unique characteristics in the vast sphere of interpersonal interactions. An image of the child should be not only realistic but also attractive enough to ensure the mother’s appropriate behaviour towards the child. Secondly, an infant can perform as an active subject of the interaction only by the means of non-verbal signals (postures, mimic, eye-sight, crying) that should be appropriately and timely recognized by his (her) mother. She is also in charge of fulfillment of the infant's expressed needs. Competence in those complementary tasks – interpreting and responding the infant’s signals – is understood as characteristics of a mother as a subject of interaction – sensitivity and responsiveness – that are also related to readiness for motherhood (Philippova G.G., 2002).

The structure of an image of the child can be described as constituted of two components: cognitive (knowledge of infant development, needs etc.) and emotional (personal value of the child, attitudes towards him/her). Emotional component of the child’s image has a life-long history of development, starting form a woman’s infancy and relationship with her own mother, through role-play, interacting with infants (e.g. siblings) as well as cultural-historical and social factors. As a rule, cognitive component develops through the life course, integrating a wide range of sources of information such as Biology lessons at school, women's mother's and the other female relatives' stories of childbirth and childrearing, fiction, women’s magazines, Internet portals etc.(Philippova G.G., Vasichkina E.V., 2007).

But development of an image of the child in pregnancy has specific features in contrast with the other ways of development of an image of a significant Other, described in psychology. Emotional component, reflecting expecting mother’s drives, values and meanings, is the prevailing one. It develops more quickly and does not necessary rely on actual perception or experience. Nevertheless, in the second trimester of pregnancy women start to perceive the fetus’ movements. That brings to life numerous fantasies related to childbirth, infants, mothering, distinction between “me” and “not me” at the bodily level. On the other hand, the fetus’ movements are the first – haptic – experience of interaction with the child that also becomes an important material for building an image of the child. When an infant is born, all the mother’s analyzers contribute to the development of his/her image. In this period of actual interaction it is important for the mother to be able to rely on her current perception of the infant’s signals rather than on her own expectations and fantasies (Philippova G.G., Vasichkina E.V., 2007).

Recent researches provide data on the interrelation between the image of the child in an expecting mother and problems of the woman’s adaptation and personal development in pregnancy, difficulties in making decisions on carrying or interrupting the pregnancy, accepting maternal role (or, in extremes, abandoning a newborn infant). An image of the child is related to medical characteristics of pregnancy and childbirth, physical and psychomotor infant’s development as well as to the quality of mother-infant interactions (Brutman V.I., Yenikolopov S.N., Miledina L.V., 1996; Kovalenko N.T., 1998; Philippova G.G., 2002).

Unconscious constituents of an image of the child, reflecting not socially desirable but true deep aspects of an expectant mother’s perception of her child, are the most important for a woman's well-being through the pregnancy, a newborn’s health and parent-child relations development. Image of the child as a holistic psychological formation possesses both verbal and non-verbal aspect. It is presumed that non-verbal representation of the image reflects unconscious aspects of an expectant mother’s perception of her child in the most profound manner (Agnaeva E.M., 2006).

Projective drawing “Me and my child” is routinely used for diagnostic and sometimes correction of an image of the child and mother-child interactions. In the longitude research performed by E.M. Agnaeva participants were asked to draw a pictogram of their child in the first, second and third trimesters of pregnancy. Four types of pictograms were figured out:

Symbolic – the child is pictured as a symbol or sign.

Natural-symbolic – the child is pictured with a scheme with several body parts.

Naturalistic – distinct holistic picture of the child without fetal features; infant, toddler or older child.

Naturalistic-medical – pictures of the child reflecting his current physical features: embryo, fetus in the womb.

Analysis of non-verbal representations of the image of the child revealed that in the first trimester symbolic images dominate (46%) – the child is pictured as a flower, round or spiral, sun and other symbols of growth, development and integrity. Thus woman’s personal meanings of the child’s image conform to general cultural meanings of childbearing and childhood. In the second trimester the most abundant pictures are natural-symbolic ones (39%) though symbolic pictures are still popular (30,5%). Prevalence of natural-symbolic drawings picturing bodily characteristics demonstrates how a generalized abstract image evolves to perception of something real and physically different from the woman herself. In the third trimester the number of naturalistic pictograms increases up to 48%. There are significant tendencies in decrease of the number of symbolic (p<0,06), natural symbolic (p<0,07) and statistically reliable difference in the quantity of naturalistic images in the first and third trimesters compared. As a rule, in the third trimester images of the children possess concrete sex, appearance and emotional expressions. In an expectant mother’s perception the child gains his/her own individuality, separate from the mother’s one. Naturalistic-medical pictures are the less prevailing in all the trimesters, having 18%, 21%, 16% respectively.

One can conclude that development of non-verbal image of the child proceeds from general characteristics to specific ones, from the holistic picture to particularities and from vague cultural ideas to personal meanings and values related to childbirth and mothering. Changes in composition of the pictures from symbolic to concrete natural demonstrate a woman’s increasing ability to perceive her child at the present moment, “here and now”.

Different medical pregnancy histories contribute to contents and development processes of an image of the child. Women with high medical risk pregnancies face serious difficulties in speaking about their children and answering the questions about his/her probable appearance, feelings, abilities and even give devaluating characteristics such as “can’t do or understand anything”, “ordinary”, “not the child I was looking forward to”. That group of women put medical care and regime moments in the focus of attention, while women without serious medical complications in pregnancy were aimed at emotional interactions with their expected infants. They appreciated their infants’ hypothetic abilities and skills, allotted them positive personal qualities: “has a lot of useful skills – shows that he is hungry, smiles, starts play and makes fun of interaction”, “has strong personality, will achieve much in the future” (Avdeeva N.N. et al., 2005).

The reason for the above described phenomena is that women with medical complications in pregnancy had less or more conscious intention to avoid bonding to their unborn babies because of fear not to carry pregnancy to the end successfully. They could not imagine and articulate feelings related to the infants’ future attachment to them as the mothers. Thus actual threat to the expectant child's life and well-being and high anxiety levels impede development of the image of the child. In practice that often leads to a mother’s low competence in mother-child interactions that procreates vicious circle of anxiety and guilt (Avdeeva N.N. et al., 2005).

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