Beyond imagination: Focusing on thoughts and feelings when envisioning motherhood before and after the baby’s arrival

Key takeaways for caregivers

• Mothers’ tendencies to reflect on their own and their children’s thoughts and feelings are related to positive outcomes in children’s development. For example, mothers who reflect in this way tend to be more attuned to their children’s needs, and their children tend to have stronger understandings of other people.
• This sort of reflection is a thought process that starts in pregnancy, when expectant mothers envision what caring for their future baby will entail.
• We analyzed the caregiving narratives of women in the transition to parenthood and after their babies were born. Specifically, we looked at their references to thoughts and feelings, and the emotional tone they conveyed when imagining future parenthood or reflecting on parenthood so far.
• We found that in pregnancy, women tended to emphasize feelings in their narratives, while in the postpartum period, they talked more about their thoughts about caregiving.
• Imagining thoughts and feelings about parenting was related to having a more positive sentiment about parenting both in pregnancy and in the postpartum period.
• Our findings support the idea that reflecting on thoughts and feelings about future caregiving starts even before birth and relates to positive views of caregiving.
• Combined with past research in the field, these findings suggest that envisioning thoughts and feelings in the transition to parenthood may improve mothers’ relationship with their babies.

Envisioning motherhood

Many people have ideas about what parenting would be like, and expectant parents tend to be especially invested during pregnancy. As parents anticipate their baby’s birth and the months and years that follow, they often imagine themselves caring for their newborn.

Our recent study shows that the way expectant mothers described these imagined visualizations during pregnancy predicted positive aspects of early caregiving after their baby was born.

Photo by Коледа Дмитрий on Pexels.

Insights into one’s own and others’ mental states often relate to better social relationships

In our exploration of expectant mothers’ imagined visualizations, we were especially interested in how the women talked about mental states, which refer to internal experiences such as thoughts, feelings, and emotions. People’s behavior and how they act, whether alone or in social relationships, are related to what they think and feel.

From past research, we know that mentalizing – reflecting on one’s own and others’ mental states – is considered a positive aspect of social relationships. Being attuned to one’s own and others’ thoughts and feelings can help individuals organize their experiences, make sense of other people’s behavior, and predict future behavior.

For example, an employee might expect his boss to react harshly to a small incident at work if he knew that the boss has been stressed about the team’s performance in the last quarter. Or the boss might be more understanding about the same incident if she just came out from a meeting in which her own supervisors were happy with the team’s work.

Young children benefit when their parents consider what they are thinking and feeling

This ability to mentalize may be particularly important in parent-child relationships because young children often cannot explain verbally what they experience, feel, and think. They depend on their caregivers to regulate their experiences and environment.

Imagine a parent playing with her infant. Is the infant fascinated by a toy, frustrated by not being able to manipulate it, or interested in playing with another toy instead? Each interpretation will lead to different parental responses.

The accuracy of parents’ interpretation and the appropriateness of their responses shape how the play session goes and how much the infant (and the parent) enjoys and learns.

Photo by Ivan Samkov on Pexels.

Indeed, parents who tend to think about mental states, or try to read their child’s mind, are also more attuned to their infant’s needs, and tend to develop more positive, secure relationships with their child.

In turn, children of parents who talk about mental states also tend to show better understanding of other people and related social skills than do children whose parents do not tend to discuss mental states.

Exploring expectant mothers’ talk about mental states during imagined visualizations of parenting before and after birth

Given the general connection between talking about mental states and having stronger interpersonal relationships and skills, we explored whether expectant mothers’ mental state talk could predict elements of their future caregiving.

We recruited 91 pregnant women, most of whom were White, from the western United States. The women participated in three assessments: two while they were pregnant and one when their baby was four months old.

During pregnancy, women were asked to visualize themselves with their infant a year in the future and imagine taking care of their baby. In the postpartum period, women read what they wrote when they were pregnant, and were asked to reflect on their current experience as a mother: Was it different than how they had imagined it before their baby’s arrival?

In women’s written narratives, we looked for language referring to mental states and indicators of how positive the mothers’ attitudes were toward caregiving. Our findings revealed three main patterns:

1. Mothers talked about mental states differently before and after giving birth.

Most mothers included some mental state talk in their descriptions of how they envisioned their future interactions with their babies and how those visualizations differed from their postpartum caregiving experiences.

However, we identified differences in the types of mental states mothers tended to emphasize during these periods:

• During pregnancy, most expectant mothers mentioned internal experiences, particularly emotions and feelings. For example, one expectant mother described imagining hiking with her baby and dog, and the happiness the three of them would feel. Another envisioned going to the playground with her infant, describing this as a bonding experience for her and her child.
• In the postpartum period, mothers tended to focus more on cognitive states, reflecting thought processes rather than emotions. For example, one mother described being surprised by how rewarding parenting was. Another said her attitudes toward work and her choices about where to focus her attention had changed since motherhood.

2. More mental state talk was related to more positive sentiments about parenting.

We also wanted to get a sense of the overall emotional tone of women’s narratives, reflecting the extent to which their narratives reflected a positive attitude and whether this sentiment was related to talking about mental states.

We reviewed women’s narratives and documented how positive, negative, or neutral their general sentiment was.

Mothers who reflected more on their thoughts and feelings also tended to have more positive attitudes toward caregiving.

At each assessment (both during pregnancy when imagining future caregiving and in the postpartum period when reflecting on the difference between caregiving expectations and current experiences), mothers who talked more about mental states also tended to show more positive sentiment in their caregiving narratives.

This suggests that mothers who reflected more on their thoughts and feelings also tended to have more positive attitudes toward caregiving.

3. Positive sentiments about caregiving in pregnancy predicted positive attitudes postpartum.

Lastly, envisioning a more positive image of caring for their infant in pregnancy was related to a more positive attitude later, when comparing caregiving reality with expectations at four months postpartum.

Concluding thoughts

Overall, our findings support the idea that thoughts about caregiving start forming before the baby’s arrival, and that thinking about thoughts and feelings when imagining what being a parent would be like is a positive step in the transition to parenthood.

Past studies indicate that parents can improve their mentalizing skills to the benefit of their relationship with their child. Although we did not study this directly, our findings suggest that starting to work on mentalizing skills early in the transition to parenthood may have a positive impact on the future parent-child relationship.

Photo by SHVETS production on Pexels.

We offer several tips for practicing mentalizing abilities to mothers who are expecting a baby, or even individuals parenting a young child:

• Journal by yourself or mentalize with your partner or a close friend to imagine and visualize what caring for your child would be like.
• Reflect on how you might think or feel in various scenarios.
• Consider these questions, among others: What might you and your child be thinking or what emotions might you be feeling during your morning or bedtime routine? What might be your favorite joint activities in which you feel most connected? When might you feel less connected and why?

Thinking about thoughts and feelings when imagining what being a parent would be like is a positive step in the transition to parenthood.

Although we have focused in this blog post on positive images and experiences, it is also important to acknowledge that thinking about the future can sometimes be overwhelming and may bring about worries.

Individuals in the transition to parenthood who find that such exercises raise worries should seek support and talk about their concerns with their health care provider.