ABSTRACT
It is widely recognized that a couple’s first pregnancy and the arrival of a first child represents a major life transition. It is a period of life involving stress and requiring significant alteration in customary life patterns (Holmes & Rahe, 1967; Hultsch & Plemons, 1979), including both role transition and status change (Antonovsky & Kats, 1967; Myers, Lindenthal, Pepper, & Ostrander, 1972). Consider here the fact that the life event defined by the transition to parenthood involves commitment to bear and raise a child, high levels of physical and psychological investment associated with pregnancy and delivery, and the real and symbolic changes that accompany the addition of a small, relatively helpless, and extremely demanding new member to the family unit. There are also the real changes that undoubtedly occur in day-to-day living and require adjustment. From everyone’s perspective, then, be they mother, father, husband, wife, or infant, the process of adding a new member to the family represents an event of some magnitude.
