Abstract
The impact of childbirth is widely regarded as a 'normative crisis', with the impact on a
couple's relationship being generally reported as negative, particularly for women. The
impact ofthe 'crisis' of premature birth, however, and the consequent extensive period of
infant hospitalisation in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU), on the parental
relationship has to date received little research attention. The present study addresses the
hypothesis that mothers and fathers of premature infants will report different levels of
dyadic adjustment to mothers and fathers of full term infants, and that mothers of
premature infants will report different levels of adjustment to their spouses. In this study
the parents of healthy full term and hospitalised prematurely born infants completed
Spanier's (1976) Dyadic Adjustment Scale immediately following the birth of their baby
and again at six to eight weeks post-discharge. The dyadic adjustment total and sub-scale
scores are compared for the four groups. Semi-structured interviews with mothers and
fathers of premature infants were conducted individually at follow-up, on the sources of
marital stress in the NICU. These are transcribed and their content analysed. The findings
and their implications are discussed.
