Findings offer promise that telephone-based peer support is effective for both early postpartum depression and maternal depression up to two years after delivery.

Research demonstrates that literacy and academic achievement are predicated on the emergent literacy knowledge and skills children acquire from birth up to 4 years of age. Parents are children's first and most important language and literacy teachers, yet not all parents have the capacity to establish an adequate early literacy foundation. Efforts to address this situation have resulted in numerous programs aimed at fostering emergent literacy development. This systematic review evaluates evidence on the effectiveness of parent-mediated interventions that increase the time parents spend reading with young children up to 4 years old. Four studies met inclusion criteria, reporting outcomes for 664 children. Three provided data for meta-analysis of effects on reading duration. The standardized mean difference in reading duration was 1.61 (95% CI, 1.03, 2.19 fixed-effect), favoring intervention over control. Results indicate that interventions aimed at increasing the amount of time parents spend reading interactively with their children yield positive results. Findings also demonstrate that pediatric primary care providers are well positioned to deliver reading promotion programs to parents and preschoolers. Issues Compr Pediatr NursDownloaded from informahealthcare.com by Northeastern University on 01/05/15 For personal use only. 2 E. Sloat et al. Issues Compr Pediatr Nurs Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by Northeastern University on 01/05/15 For personal use only. Receptive vocabulary: Int: 51.0 (SE 3.0) (P = 0.004) Con: 39.3 (SE 2.7) (P = 0.004) Figure 2. Details of studies included in systematic review.

Although methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) is the intervention of choice for addiction, unfortunately, mothers are less likely to engage in care. Greater understanding of how mothers experience the addiction and the recovery process is needed to develop strategies to effectively engage mothers in MMT. This mixed method study applied quantitative and qualitative approaches with a sample of 12 mothers who were engaged in MMT for 3 or more months. Although the results showed stresses of high depression and difficult life circumstance scores, the mothers had strengths that included positive social support and family functioning. Inductive analysis of transcribed interviews identified three themes that explained how mothers experienced addiction and recovery: diminished maternal identity, choice for mothering, and redefined maternal identity. During addiction, mothers described a sense of diminished maternal identity with two subthemes of diminished performed mothering and interrupted mothering. With the second theme, choice for mothering, mothers described making the choice to attend MMT for their children. The third theme, redefined maternal identity, consisted of two subthemes that reflected potential outcomes of MMT and addiction recovery. Whereas most mothers described positive, restored maternal identity, two mothers of older children noted continued diminished maternal identity with persistence of negative mother-child relationships despite maternal addiction recovery. Recommendations are made to assist service providers to consider maternal identity within the recovery process.

Unmanaged maternal opioid addiction poses health and social risks to both mothers and children in their care. Methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) is a targeted public health service to which nurses and other allied health professionals may refer these high risk families for support. Mothers participating in MMT to manage their addiction and their service providers were interviewed to identify resources to maximize mothers' engagement in treatment and enhance mothers' parenting capacity. Twelve mothers and six service providers were recruited from an outpatient Atlantic Canadian methadone treatment program. Two major barriers to engagement in MMT were identified by both mothers and service providers including (1) the lack of available and consistent childcare while mothers attended outpatient programs and (2) challenges with transportation to the treatment facility. All participants noted the potential benefits of adding supportive resources for the children of mothers involved in MMT and for mothers to learn how to communicate more effectively with their children and rebuild damaged mother-child relationships. The public health benefits of integrating parent-child ancillary supports into MMT for mothers are discussed.

No abstract