One substantial aspect in the development of the relation between mother and her newborn baby is the child’s seeking for attachment and how the mother appropriate handles the child’s needs. Attachment Theory has shown that there is a natural desire for attachment in human beings. But there is a variety, how the organization of attachment in the first years of live occurs. The concrete experiences in attachment in the early childhood have special consequences for the later development as child, adolescent and in adulthood. The way, in which the attachment relationship to significant others develops, depends on the capacity of an attachment figure to read the signals of child’s behaviour and needs, to understand them and to behave prompt and adequate. But it is seen more and more that mothers of first born babies can not manage to do so. They often do not develop the capacity to behave sensitively which can lead to childrens’ unsecure attachment or even more to desorganized attachment. On the other hand, children whose parents show high sensitivity often develop secure attachments. Research has shown that secure attachment relations at the age of 12 months represent a protective factor for the ongoing psychosocial development of the child, on the contrary desorganized attachment is a psychiatric risk factor. Therefore it is important to create prevention programs which support parents to behave sensitively with their children. In meta-analysis it was shown that the effect of interventions does not depend on their amount, but that less interventions which are special targeted are more efficient for developing the attachment qualities. There exists attachment based intervention programs. The families treated in these programs mostly are high risk families. One program is the STEEP program. This research project studies, whether in a clinically inconspicuous sample small interventions at time of childbirth could help to develop secure attachment relationships at the age of 12 months. The interventions contain informations about sensitive behaviour towards the child and decipher the clues in child’s behaviour. If the study shows up that this tiny interventions help mothers to develop a secure attachment relationship, it will be possible to think about possibilities to help mother in the early stage of parenting. One result could be to create and implement programs in parental guidance to support the sensitive behavor of parents towards their children.

The study is a longitudinal study. There were five assessments, which started in the last term of pregnancy and ended at the child’s age of three years. 54 mothers and their first born babies were part of the study. All these mothers had no pathological findings. The quality of attachment both from mother and child and mother’s sensitivity towards the child were explored. These long period of survey made it possible to study the development of the attachment relationship between child and mother. The whole sample was divided into a interventiongroup and a controlgroup. The mothers of the first group got at the assessment during pregnancy and five weeks after birth non intrusive interventions which helped to support the sensitivity in dealing with the baby. The attachment quality was surveyed with standardized procedures – mother’s attachment with the Adult Attachment Projective and the child’ attachment with the Strange Situation.

The first analyses show, that children whose mothers got the non intrusive and preventive interventions how to behave sensitive with a child have significant more often a secure attachment relationship with their child than mothers without these interventions. In our presentation we will discuss the consequences of these findings. We are going to think about consequences for pedagogical based preventive intervention programmes.