Maternal Prenatal Attachment: An Early Intergenerational Intervention for Child Psychiatry

Abstract

Pregnancy is a time of dynamic physiological and psychological changes that prepare the maternal milieu for fetal development and consequently prepare women for motherhood. Psychological changes may include beginning to identify as a mother and establishing feelings of increasing emotional investment and preoccupation with the unborn child.1 While John Bowlby’s original theory of human attachment emphasized the child’s attachment to their mother,2 the mother’s emotional attachment to the child is equally important to recognize and may begin before birth.3 Maternal attachment toward her unborn child has been termed maternal prenatal attachment.