An evaluation of a mother-infant seminar

There have been the formation of mother-infant support groups due to an awareness that women need support in their role as mother. The fifty-three women studied attended An Ongoing Seminar Series: Mothers and Infants in Alexandria, Virginia. The study was an exploratory, descriptive collection of data on the participants' backgrounds, characteristics of their post-partum experience, and their personal evaluation of the seminar.

There were sixty-two percent of the questionnaires returned. A variable analysis of the one hundred thirty- ' four variables was undertaken. On four sections of the questionnaire items were rated on a scale. Group scores were analyzed for each of these sections.

Participants in this study were seen as socially motivated and intelligent women experiencing post-partum adjustment in balancing their time commitment in the roles of wife, mother, and person. This was coupled with a unanimous feeling of chronic tiredness. The seminar provided social contact with others that shared these same feelings. It did not always provide mothers with certain expertise and solution oriented discussions that they desired. A re-evaluation of the seminar format and content could better meet the mothers' needs.