Associations of Maternal-Infant Bonding with Maternal Mental Health, Infant's Characteristics and Socio-Demographical Variables in the Early Postpartum Period: A Cross-Sectional Study.

Joanna Preis-Orlikowska,Mariola Bidzan,Mariusz Cieślak,Karolina Lutkiewicz,Łucja Bieleninik

doi:10.3390/ijerph18168517

Abstract

(1) Background: There is a continuing discussion concerning the impact of preterm birth on Maternal-Infant bonding with inconsistent results. The large burden of preterm births calls for research to evaluate the impact of it on material psychological outcome in the early postpartum period. Thus, the aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between maternal postpartum bonding with maternal mental health, socio-demographical factors, and child’s characteristics. (2) Methods: A cross-sectional study design was used. In total, 72 women (a mean age of 31.44 years old) of preterm infants (mean gestational age = 33.54; range 24–36) filled out socio-demographic questionnaires, Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire (PBQ), Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale (EPDS), Postpartum Depression Screening Scale (PDSS), Generalized Anxiety Disorder Assessment (GAD-7), and Parental Stress Scale (PSS) 1–3 days post-delivery; (3) Results: The results analyses have shown positive correlations between the overall result of maternal postpartum bonding with stress (p < 0.01), maternal educational level (p < 0.01), maternal age (p < 0.05) and the number of children (p < 0.01). However, there were no significant relationships between other investigated variables. The results of linear regression have revelated the important role of the overall scores in experience of stress among mothers (explaining 49% of the variability). The mediating role of maternal stress on maternal postpartum bonding was not found. That relationship of maternal postpartum bonding and maternal stress was not moderated through socio-demographic variables. (4) Conclusions: In this study mothers of prematurely born children had a good level of Maternal-Infant bonding. Maternal stress was found to be a predictor of maternal postpartum bonding among the tested variables. Surprisingly, the study results did not show significant relationships between maternal postpartum bonding and maternal mental health (depression and anxiety).

Highlights

Considering the transition to parenthood is a very stressful situation, we evaluated two mediating models to check if depression and anxiety mediate the relationship between maternal postpartum bonding via maternal stress
The results of the current study indicated that there was no relationship between anxiety or depression and maternal postpartum bonding when maternal stress was included as a mediator
The findings in this study emphasize that the experience of stress and socio-demographical variables may impact the process of developing a Maternal-Infant bond among mothers after the preterm birth

Summary

Introduction

Preterm birth (PTB) is defined as childbirth prior to 37 weeks of pregnancy [1]. PTB is one of the most complex issues related to pregnancy due to its etiology, high frequency, high neonatal morbidity, mortality, comorbidity as well as short and long-term consequences. Spontaneous preterm birth (first subtype) is related to a mother’s age at pregnancy, pregnancy spacing, multiple pregnancy, infection, underlying maternal chronic medical.

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion