Low Birth Weight and Parenting Stress During

Identified factors associated with parenting stress among the parents of low birth weight children participating in a prospective longitudinal study. The child's developmental status and the quality of the infant-parent relationship contrib-uted to early childhood parenting stress beyond the contribution of neonatal medical risk, which was a significant predictor until the concurrent measure of child developmental status was entered in the regression analysis. Results are consistent with a model of processes underlying the experiences of parents of medically vulnerable infants presented by the Goldberg and Marcovitch (1986) model. Replication of these findings among parents of specific subgroups of low birth weight children represents a direction for future research. KEY WORDS: preterm; low birth weight; prematurity; parenting stress; attachment; early child-hood. There has been extensive research concerning the impact of low birth weight on the child's subsequent development (Beckwith & Rodning, 1991). Research concerning its impact on the quality of subsequent parenting experiences has been limited. Goldberg and Marcovitch (1986) suggested that the quality of parenting experiences following the birth of a medically vulnerable infant can b