Infant-Mother Attachment of Internationally Adopted Children in the Netherlands

• Published in: International journal of behavioral development Vol. 20; no. 1; pp. 93 - 107
• Main Authors: Juffer, Femmie, Rosenboom, Lizette G.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Thousand Oaks, CA Sage Publications 01.02.1997
• Subjects: Attachment; Intercountry adoption; Mother-Infant relationships; Netherlands
• ISSN: 0165-0254; 1464-0651
• DOI: 10.1080/016502597385469

In the Netherlands, 80 mothers and their infants, adopted from Sri Lanka, South Korea and Colombia, were observed at home at 6 and 12 months to rate the adoptive mother’ssensitivity, and in the Strange Situation at 12 and 18 months to assess the infant-mother attachment relationship. All inter-racially adopted infants were placed before the age of 6 months, with a mean age of 11 weeks, in adoptive families with or without biological children. Coded with Ainsworth’sclassification scheme the results reveal 74% secure attachment relationships, a percentage comparable to that of normative studies. The results indicate no differences regarding the child’scountry of origin, or the (non)presence of biological children. The results contradict findings from a study that revealed an over-representation of insecure infant-mother attachment relationships in a sample of American mothers with an interracially adopted infant. In the current study the adoptive mother’ssensitivity seems comparable to the sensitivity of nonadoptive mothers, a finding that concurs with the attachment results. It is suggested that the outcomes in this study may be partly explained by the fact that these infants were placed for adoption at a rather young age, with relatively favourable circumstances prior to the placement. This may well indicate that adoption placement per se, without the cumulative effects of understimulation and lack of personal affection that older placed children often experience in institutions, does not inevitably lead to a disturbed parent-infant relationship.