Level of mother-baby bonding and influencing factors during pregnancy and postpartum period.

Abstract

Bonding is the process of an emotional relationship between mothers and babies. Pregnancy and postpartum periods are most important of developing a mother-child bonding. Here we aimed to determine the level of mother-baby bonding and identify the influencing factors during pregnancy and the postpartum period and to examine the relationship between bonding level during pregnancy and the postpartum period. This cross-sectional descriptive study included twelve districts across a range of socioeconomic structures. Every district was selected by a simple random sampling method. Data were collected with Prenatal Attachment Inventory, Mother-to-Infant Bonding Scale, Center for Epidemiologic Studies' Depression Scale and Beck Anxiety Inventory. The study included two home visits. The first visit at gestational age ≥35 weeks and second visit on the seventh or eighth day of the postpartum period. The study was conducted with 227 pregnant women. We found that, 50.7% pregnant women had prenatal depression and 36.6% pregnant women had postpartum depression. We detected a negative association between depression level during pregnancy and the postpartum period with mother-baby bonding in the postpartum period (r=0.174, p=0.009; and r=0.221, p=0.001, respectively). A negative correlation was detected between anxiety level and mother-baby bonding level in the postpartum period (r=0.151, p=0.023). It was found that when the prenatal attachment level increases, the level of postpartum bonding is also increases (r=0.297, p=0.000). Depression and anxiety levels were higher during pregnancy than the postpartum period. Depression level during pregnancy and postpartum period depression and anxiety level negatively affected mother-baby bonding in the postpartum period. We found that as prenatal attachment level increases, the level of postpartum bonding also increases.