Does childbirth really transform your life: A longitudinal dyadic perspective.

To investigate the influence of childbirth on personality traits (PT) and attachment orientations (AO), the authors conducted a three-wave longitudinal research program (second prepartum trimester, 6 months postpartum and 1 year postpartum) using a multilevel modeling framework on 204 parental couples with parental group (primiparous vs. multiparous parents) as a time-invariant predictor and the partner’s development as a time-varying covariate. Results showed that only father’s Extraversion (PT) decreases after childbirth. Except this result, parents’ PT and AO remain highly stable. Besides, when facing childbirth, mothers and fathers tend to follow the same developmental trajectory and hence to function in dyad. Our second question of research focused on the longitudinal associations between parents’ PT and AO when facing childbirth and the direction of these associations by means of cross-lagged panel models. These models, in which within-time correlations and the relative stability of the constructs of interest are controlled for, were suited to infer whether PT predict AO, whether AO predict PT, whether there is a reciprocal process in which relative changes in PT and AO mutually reinforce one another or whether there is no longitudinal associations between PT and AO when facing childbirth. Actually, our results showed a longitudinal independence between our constructs of interest. The discussion underlines the stability and the relative independence of PT and AO and the importance of the dyadic perspective to understand the child experience