Effect of maternal–fetal/Neonatal attachment interventions on perinatal anxiety and depression: A narrative review

Abstract

Pregnancy and postpartum period may be accompanied with maternal anxiety and depression, each of which causes unfavorable outcomes in the mother and the infant. The maternal–fetal/neonatal interaction called attachment may influence these mental states. The present research has been performed with the goal to review the effect of maternal–fetal/neonatal attachment on perinatal anxiety and depression. This narrative review study has been done on the interventional studies in Persian and English published in 2006–2018 through searching the databases such as Google Scholar, Science Direct, Magiran, PubMed, Scientific Information Database, and Scopus and the keywords, such as anxiety, depression, and maternal–fetal/neonatal attachment. At the end, 14 articles have been included in the study. The findings have been organized into two categories: maternal–fetal attachment (10 papers) including three categories such as (1) paying attention to the fetus made up of two subcategories as relationship with the fetus and mental imagery, (2) awareness raising, and (3) relaxation techniques covering three subcategories as relaxation, exercise, and music and maternal–neonatal attachment (4 papers) including two categories such as (1) physical touch with infant and (2) pregnancy period training. Maternal–fetal/ neonatal attachment increase using various interventions can reduce pregnancy- and postpartum-induced anxiety and depression. Although regarding the mutual attachment and physiological health relationship, it is not possible to state which of these two variables get improved initially by the interventions and finally the expected result, i.e., the above factors' improvement is achieved. Thus, training attachment enhancement techniques to pregnant women's care providers are recommended.