Mercer's Conceptualization of Maternal Tole Attainment

Professional Development: Module 5

Middle Range Nursing Theories

Mercer’s Conceptualization of Maternal Role Attainment/Becoming a Mother

Nursing Practice

Becoming a mother is a wonderful and scary new role. Women have a sense of excitement and wonder, as well as, a grieving process with they go through when a child is born. Nurses play a key role n guiding new mothers to help them achieve maternal goals. Mercier explains this phenomenon as the patient fanaticizing about her new role as a mother by emulating parts of her own mothers performance and grief over the parts of her life that will be lost after becoming a new mother. Mercier ‘s conceptualization of maternal role attainment theory, or as Mercier wants it to be called, “becoming a mother” (Beal and Comeford, 2005). According to McEwen and Wills (2011, p, 241) Mercier attempted to identify the “form and strength of the relationships between key maternal and infant variables and maternal role attainment” As well as “other factors that appear to influence maternal role attainment.” She proposes that the variables of age, perception, stress, infant separation, support systems, self concept, personality, maternal and infant illness, child rearing, attitudes, infant temperament, culture and socioeconomic level reflect the maternal role (McEwen and Wills, 2011).

Most studies performed on material competence and maternal role attainment were of married, white middle class women, Copeland & Harbaugh (2004) studied 78 older and younger women of which half were single mothers, they found that confidence increased over time from prenatal to fourth week postpartum, However, older adolescent mothers provided more sensory stimulation for their infants than younger adolescent mothers...

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