Theme: parenting stress of substitute mothers of early age children. Aim: study the parenting stress of substitute mothers of early age children. Objectives: compare parenting stress substitute and biological mothers; identify correlations between parenting stress and children`s health, their socio-emotional development, socio-demographic characteristics of the families; describe the specifics of substitute families. Methods: PSI-4, ASQ:SE-2, socio-demographic and health questionnaires. Results: 1. most of the sample has an optimal level of parenting stress; the detected excess of the norm was observed less frequently in substitute mothers than in biological mothers; no significant differences between the mean values of parenting stress in the studied groups; 2. found significant differences in the number of perinatal and the total number of diseases of the child, the number of adults living with him and the mother`s age; the difference in the mother`s education at the tendency level; 3. we found the correlat