Maternal Bonding Research Articles

The Effects of Intimate Partner Violence Exposure on the Maternal Bond and PTSD Symptoms of Children.

The quality of the maternal bond can be disrupted in women exposed to intimate partner violence (IPV), causing them to be less available to their children. The aim of this study was to examine difficulties in emotional regulation in women exposed to IPV and the impact of IPV on both the maternal bond and posttraumatic symptoms among children. A cross-sectional study was carried out with two groups: IPV dyads ( n = 36) comprising mothers who had been exposed to IPV and their children, and control dyads ( n = 27) comprising non-abused mothers and their children. Information was obtained via structured interviews including scales regarding IPV, posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, maternal bond, and difficulties in emotional regulation. Correlation analyses showed a positive association between the severity of IPV, PTSD symptom severity in children, and difficulties of emotional regulation in mothers. They also showed a negative association between IPV and the quality of the maternal bond. Regression models demonstrated that exposure to sexual IPV, maternal difficulties in emotion regulation, and younger age of the mother are important predictors of lower quality of the maternal bond. Difficulties in emotional regulation and sexual IPV disrupted the quality of the maternal bond among women and their children. In addition, lower quality of maternal bond was associated with higher PSTD symptoms among children.

CLIMA AFECTIVO EN EL AULA: VÍNCULO EMOCIONAL MAESTRO-ALUMNO

Esta revisión pretende abordar la temática sobre apego y seguridad emocional en los niños,concretándolo en la edad infantil de 3 a 6 años. En primer lugar, y como principal objetivo, busca estudiar cuál es el papel que tiene el docente como figura de apego, y de qué manera éste vínculo es capaz de generar oportunidades de desarrollo óptimo. Para ello, se hace necesario descubrir qué relación existe entre el tipo de apego que los niños establecen con la figura materna, y las relaciones posteriores qué establecerán con el maestro y sus iguales. Se intenta verificar el peso del vínculo materno y si éste es determinante y marca el desarrollo del niño; o si por el contrario, puede ser solventado por la figura del maestro, pudiendo convertirse este en una auténtica base segura a la que el niño pueda acudir. Por último, se hace referencia a otros factores relevantes que encontramos en el Sistema Educativo y qué pueden influir de forma determinante.

‘Abagyenda bareeba. Those who Travel, See’: Home, Migration and the Maternal Bond in Doreen Baingana’s Tropical Fish

ABSTRACTDoreen Baingana’s Tropical Fish explores the migratory experiences of the main narrator-focalizer, Christine Mugisha, as she travels from Uganda to the United States of America. Although the analyses of home, exile, and migration by writers like Edward Said and Paul Tiyambe Zeleza tend to be ungendered; Baingana seems to elaborate on these concerns by reflecting on the gendered experience of travel. As Carole Boyce Davies has argued, the act of travelling and migration opens up new spaces and possibilities for black women writers as they come into contact with multiple places and cultures. In their encounters with migration, black women are able to negotiate and re-negotiate their identities. This article focuses on how Tropical Fish, interrogates complex, contradictory, ambiguous and often conflicted questions of home and migration with their concomitant issues of belonging and alienation/ estrangement and how they are intimately tied to the maternal bond. The article argues that Tropical Fish theorises the gendering of travel by trying to think through the mother-daughter relationship in terms of the daughter who abandons the home and how her diverse experiences of travel and migration contribute to the formation of an individual sense of self. In other words, it enables us to ask, why do the daughters travel; what difference does it make when daughters travel; what happens when the daughter returns to the mother; when the mother speaks to the returning daughter?

Impact of Skin-to-Skin Newborn Transition on Maternal Intent to Breastfeed, Maternal Infant Bonding, and Maternal Post-Delivery Experience: An Observational Study

Impact of Skin-to-Skin Newborn Transition on Maternal Intent to Breastfeed, Maternal Infant Bonding, and Maternal Post-Delivery Experience: An Observational Study

Relação Materna na Construção da Identidade de Gêmeos

Although little discussed, the theme “maternal relationship in twin situation” is extremely important, so that, although born and grow together, the twins have speci c needs that in uence the construction of their identities. In this way, this article sought through a literature review, explain and discuss the topic based on theoretical references published in books, magazines and periodicals. For both, devised to conduct a literature review for convenience in BVS scienti c database with the following descriptors (twins AND maternal care AND bond AND psychoanalysis). e results highlighted that, maternal care in twins situations has a certain complexity, once, this mother will have to care her two babies individually, intending to assist the construction of the identity of these. Besides, it is emphasized that during the process of individuation the babies need to deal with anxieties that permeate their lives, that is, they have the challenge to develop their identity separated not only from her mother, but also from his own brother.

Commentary: Oxytocin-Gaze Positive Loop and the Coevolution of Human-Dog Bonds.

Commentary: Oxytocin-Gaze Positive Loop and the Coevolution of Human-Dog Bonds.

The Parental Bond and Alcohol Use Among Adolescents: The Mediating Role of Drinking Motives

Background: Alcohol use and alcohol-related problems represent a significant health concern. Few empirical researches focused on understanding the interrelationships and links between the parental bond, drinking motives, and alcohol use during adolescence.Objectives: The present study examined the relationships between a supportive parental bond, drinking motives, and alcohol use, with a focus on the role of mediation.Methods: The sample comprised 298 adolescents, aged from 16 to 20 years. The technique of structural equation modelling (SEM) was used to assess the direct and indirect effects of the parental bond on alcohol use among adolescents through motives for drinking.Results: The relationship between the parental bond and frequency of alcohol use by adolescents was not mediated by any motives for drinking, neither for males nor females. Regarding the relationships between the parental bond and quantity of adolescent alcohol consumption, findings for females showed significant indirect effects of maternal bond on alcohol quantity, when coping, enhancement, and social drinking motives were entered as mediator variables. Rather, paternal bond did not predict drinking quantity, not even indirectly. On the contrary, results for males indicated that the parental bond was neither directly nor indirectly associated with adolescent alcohol use.Conclusions/Importance: Mothers are the relational fulcrum of the family, while fathers seem to maintain a more peripheral position. Gender differences are discussed on the basis of the different cultural and parental socialisation processes that operate for male and female adolescents.

‘A Nine-Month Head-Start’: The Maternal Bond and Surrogacy

ABSTRACTThis article analyses how interviewees drew on the ‘natural’ concept of the maternal bond to make nuanced and contingent claims about motherhood and the ethics of surrogacy. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Scotland with people who do not have personal experience of surrogacy, it describes how they used this ‘natural’ concept to make claims about the ethics of surrogacy and compares these claims with their personal experiences of maternal bonding. Interviewees expected that because of the experience of pregnancy, mothers have a ‘nine-month head-start’ in bonding with their children. While this valorises it, it also reproduces normative expectations about the nature and ethic of motherhood.

The effect of physical contact between dairy cows and calves during separation on their post-separation behavioural response

Premature breaking of the maternal bond between a cow and her calf triggers a strong behavioural response which renders separation and weaning major welfare challenges in suckling systems. Fence-line separation and weaning allowing physical contact has been evaluated for beef cattle and is claimed to reduce stress at separation. The objective of this study was to compare the post-separation behavioural response of cow–calf pairs separated either with a fence-line (FL, n=8 pairs) allowing physical contact or with a solid wall (SW, n=8 pairs) allowing merely auditory contact. After separation, all calves were offered milk (2.0L, thrice a day) from a teat bottle to reduce the effect of hunger. Behaviours were recorded for 4h at days 0 (day of separation), 1, 2, 3 and 4 from which we calculated the total behavioural reaction (area under the curve, AUC). Treatment differences were analysed with two samples Wilcoxon test. Most of the post-separation responses occurred during day 0–2. Results show that FL calves performed less high-pitched (open mouthed) vocalizations as compared to SW calves (P=0.003). Median number of calls/4h and range for FL vs. SW calves respectively were: day 0; 13 (0–94) vs. 361 (2–658), day 1; 10 (1–247) vs. 274 (18–872), day 2; 0 (0–4) vs. 48 (0–365), day 3; 0 (0–1) vs. 4 (0–135) and day 4; 0 (0–2) vs. 18 (0–84). Calves separated with FL also showed a lower frequency than SW calves (P=0.003) of alert behaviour defined as high-head posture, pointed ears with focus towards the cow (median percentage of observations and range for FL and SW calves respectively): day 0; 23 (0–50) vs. 26 (0–50), day 1; 3 (0–12) vs. 12 (4–36), day 2; 0 (0–6) vs. 12 (0–18), day 3; 0 (0–2) vs. 3 (0–18) and day 4; 0 (0–2) vs. 15 (0–28). No significant treatment differences were found for other calf behaviours or in the post-separation behavioural responses of the cow. This is the first study to quantitatively assess two different vocalizations in response to separation; low-pitched vocalizations (with closed mouth) and high-pitched vocalizations in response to separation. Recordings of high-pitched vocalization seem to be a promising tool for assessing distress at separation. In conclusion, FL separation allowing physical contact may reduce the vocal response and alert behaviour of calves.

Family Ties and Young Fathers' Engagement in Cape Town, South Africa.

Young South African fathers are often engaged in their children's lives even if they do not live together. Using longitudinal data on children (n = 1,209) from the Cape Town area, the authors show that although only 26% of young fathers live with their children, 66% of nonresidential fathers maintain regular contact, and 61% provide financial support. The father-child relationship, however, is embedded in broader family ties. The type of father-mother relationship is strongly associated with whether fathers coreside with their children, but not with fathers' contact with nonresidential children. Close mother and maternal grandmother bonds reduce the likelihood that fathers live with their children, whereas close ties between fathers and paternal grandmothers increase the chance that fathers visit nonresidential children. Family ties do not affect fathers' financial contributions, which are driven by men's current economic situation. These findings illustrate that father-child relationships are best understood in the context of interacting family systems.

Klein, Ferenczi and the clinical diary.

The aim of this article is to revisit Ferenczi's Clinical Diary (1932) to investigate the influence he had on Melanie Klein's work. It starts from the position that insufficient recognition has been given to Ferenczi's contribution to Klein's body of work and her professional development. Her analysis with Ferenczi lasted 5 years, a relatively long analysis for the period. It explores his influence in three specific areas: the importance of raw and early emotion in the maternal bond, the importance of freedom and authenticity in the analytic relationship, and finally the use of transference and countertransference feelings. Ferenczi's ill-fated experiment with mutual analysis will be discussed as it opened up a route to explore the analytic relationship, with important consequences for the future development of psychoanalysis.

Mothering & Psychoanalysis: Clinical, Sociological and Feminist Perspectives

Petra Bueskens has edited and organised an impressive array of contemporary writing on mothering and psychoanalysis from clinical, sociological and feminist perspectives. The book consists of five sections: the therapist as mother; the mother in therapy; mothers in art and culture; mothers in theory and practice; and mothering, therapy culture and the social. Highlights of the volume address maternal subjectivity; the rewards and unrecognised costs paid by working mothers; the relation between the devaluation of care and the feminisation of the helping professions; and how maternal legacies may ravage daughters, whose maternal bonds may lay siege to a sense of agency hijacked by anger, envy and a perpetual sense of loss. This issue of mother-daughter ambivalence is touched on in many of the essays across the five sections of the volume, and will be the focus of my discussion here, particularly in relation to how maternity and a woman’s identity are thought of as either condensed, distinct or informing one another. One of the themes of the volume is the way a daughter’s sense of abandonment, or a perceived absence of care, (whether due to her mother’s own ambivalence, or depression, for instance, or her other social commitments), can animate what Jungians refer to as dark animus, where the struggle to individuate from the mother prevents realisation of a maternal inheritance on the side of agency and care. S. Alease Ferguson and Toni C. King’s chapter ‘Dark Animus: A Psychodynamic Interpretation of the Consequences of Diverted Mothering among African-American Daughters’ presents cases of African American women whose adolescence was marked by the absence of their mothers, many of whom were working as domestic carers in other households. Such absence and the demand to pick up the domestic work and care for siblings left these women struggling with maternal ambivalence or a refusal to become mothers themselves. Nancy Chodorow, in ‘Too late: The Reproduction and Non

Lack of Breastfeeding: A Potential Risk Factor in the Multifactorial Genesis of Borderline Personality Disorder and Impaired Maternal Bonding.

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by a pattern of intense but unstable interpersonal relationships. These interpersonal dysfunctions may originate from impaired bonding and attachment that is determined during early life. Remarkably, it has been reported that the quality of mother-infant relationship is influenced by the feeding mode. Thus, bottle feeding instead of breastfeeding and possible lack of maternal bonding-related behavior may increase the risk for later psychopathology and attachment problems as seen in BPD. A total of 100 BPD patients and 100 matched healthy controls underwent semistructured interviews, based on retrospective information about early risk factors and breastfeeding during infancy. The authors' analyses revealed that BPD patients were significantly less breastfed compared to healthy controls (no breastfeeding in BPD: 42.4%; no breastfeeding in controls: 18.2%; p < .001). The BPD diagnosis was significantly predicted by the variable "no breastfeeding" (p < .001; odds ratio [OR] = 3.32; confidence interval [CI] [1.74, 6.34]), even after adjustment for childhood trauma and several confounding factors (p = .001). The variable "no breastfeeding" accounts for 9.1% of the variance of the BPD diagnosis and is associated with low perceived maternal bonding (p = .006). Breastfeeding may act as an early indicator of the mother-infant relationship that seems to be relevant for bonding and attachment later in life.

Multivoxel analysis for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) based on time-series and contextual information: relationship between maternal love and brain regions as a case study

This study explores the relationship between maternal love and brain regions by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). Also, a novel pattern analysis for fMRI based on the discovered brain regions is proposed in this work. Firstly, to identify which region responds to stimuli, a statistical t-test is used after the scan. Based on these preliminary regions of interest, this study develops discriminant features extracted from multivoxels for cognitive modeling. In total, five parameters are used in the time-series and contextual analysis, including the proposed blood-oxygen-level-dependent (BOLD) contrast edge, BOLD contrast centroid, activated voxels, mean, and variance. Furthermore, this study also proposes a test function for examining voxel activation based on variance, so that insignificant voxels and irrelevant outliers can be removed from the features. After the feature extraction from brain regions of interest, the analysis subsequently uses Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) for reducing the feature size. Lastly, this study adopts a computer-aided pattern recognizer, the Support Vector Machine (SVM), to facilitate automation of the proposed analysis. A dataset consisting of brain-scanning images from 22 subjects was used for evaluation. The statistical result shows that the neural circuitry associated with maternal bonds indeed appears in the relevant brain regions as indicated by the other research. Such regions are subsequently used for assessment of the proposed analysis. Classification result shows that the proposed approach can effectively identify activated samples. Besides, our system achieves an accuracy rate of as high as 83.33 %. A comparison among different systems reveals that the proposed system is superior to the others and establishes its feasibility.

The Neural Basis of Maternal Bonding

BackgroundAccumulating evidence suggests that mothers show a different pattern of brain responses when viewing their own compared to other infants. However, there is inconsistency across functional imaging studies regarding the key areas involved, and none have examined relationships between brain and behavioural responses to infants. We examined the brain regions activated when mothers viewed videos of their own infant contrasted with an unknown infant, and whether these are associated with behavioural and self-reported measures of mother-infant relations.MethodTwenty right-handed mothers viewed alternating 30-sec blocks of video of own 4–9 month infant and an unfamiliar matched infant, interspersed with neutral video. Whole brain functional magnetic resonance images (fMRI) were acquired on a 1.5T Philips Intera scanner using a TR of 2.55 s. Videotaped mother-infant interactions were systematically evaluated blind to family information to generate behavioural measures for correlational analysis.ResultsEnhanced blood oxygenation functional imaging responses were found in the own versus unknown infant contrast in the bilateral precuneus, right superior temporal gyrus, right medial and left middle frontal gyri and left amygdala. Positive mother-infant interaction (less directive parent behaviour; more positive/attentive infant behaviour) was significantly associated with greater activation in several regions on viewing own versus unknown infant, particularly the middle frontal gyrus. Mothers' perceived warmth of her infant was correlated with activations in the same contrast, particularly in sensory and visual areas.ConclusionThis study partially replicates previous reports of the brain regions activated in mothers in response to the visual presentation of their own infant. It is the first to report associations between mothers' unique neural responses to viewing their own infant with the quality of her concurrent behaviour when interacting with her infant and with her perceptions of infant warmth. These findings provide support for developing fMRI as a potential biomarker of parenting risk and change.

Love Thy Baby: Breastfeeding and Its Relation to Infant Attachment Security

A popular assumption among authors is that breastfeeding promotes a strong relationship between the mother and baby. Publications on the topic often make unsubstantiated claims about the positive effects of breastfeeding on a maternal bond with the infant or on the attachment of the infant to His/Her mother. This notion is so pervasive that mothers report improvement of their relationship with their infants, rather than health or developmental effects as their main reason for breastfeeding. A UK study by Murphy (recently reviewed by Jansen et al.) found that those intending to bottle-feed were more commonly accused of being poor mothers-an attitude likely to cause inordinate stress and guilt in those who are unable to breastfeed for whatever reason. This paper reviews the existing empirical scientif ic literature, and argues that there is not enough evidence to support the claim that breastfeeding has a significant advantage over bottle-feeding on infant attachment security, positing mediating factors such as maternal sensitivity and overall dyadic interaction quality, as well as an effect of demographic variables such as socioeconomic status and race, particularly the influence of cultural beliefs and childrearing practices on both breastfeeding initiation/duration and attachment security outcomes.

Optimising reproductive performance of beef cows and replacement heifers

A reproductively efficient beef cow herd is fundamental to meeting the protein and specifically, red meat demand of an ever increasing global population. However, attaining a high level of reproductive efficiency is underpinned by producers being cognisant of and achieving many key targets throughout the production cycle and requires significant technical competency. The lifetime productivity of the beef bred female commences from the onset of puberty and will be dictated by subsequent critical events including age at first calving, duration of the postpartum interval for each successive calving, conception and pregnancy rate and ultimately manifested as length of intercalving intervals and number of calves weaned over her lifetime. Puberty in heifers is a consequence of the interactive effects of genetics and both pre- and post-weaning nutrition. Early onset of puberty is essential to achieving the first main reproductive target for beef cow herds; first calving at 2 years of age. In calved heifers and mature cows, the onset of ovarian activity, postpartum is a key event dictating the calving interval. Again, this will be the product mainly of prepartum nutrition, manifested through body condition and the strength of the maternal bond between cow and calf, though there is increasing evidence of a modest genetic influence on this trait. Following the initiation of postpartum ovarian cyclicity, conception and subsequent pregnancy rate is generally a function of bull fertility in natural service herds and heat detection and timing of insemination in herds bred through artificial insemination. Cows and heifers should be maintained on a steady plane of nutrition during the breeding season, but the contribution of significant excesses or deficiencies of nutrients including protein and trace elements is likely to be minor where adequate pasture is available. While, increased efforts are being made internationally to genetically identify and select for more reproductively efficient beef cows, this is a more long-term strategy and will not replace the need for a high level of technical efficiency and management practice at farm level.

The parental bond, resistance to peer influence, and risky driving in adolescence

The present study examined the relations between gender, the parental bond, resistance to peer influence, and risky driving. In particular, the mediating role of resistance to peer pressure in the relationship between parental bond and risky driving was examined. The moderating role of gender on these associations was also investigated. The sample comprised 322 adolescents (136 males and 186 females), aged from 16 to 20years, who were living in northern Italy. Path analysis results showed that the maternal bond only indirectly influenced adolescents’ risky driving, via resistance to peer influence. On the contrary, the paternal bond was neither directly nor indirectly associated with risky driving. All the paths were invariant across gender. The results of the present study suggest that the parental bond is not responsible for the widely reported link between parenting practices and adolescents’ risky driving, per se. Rather, findings suggest that the mother–adolescent relationship shapes adolescents’ ability to resist peer influence, which, in turn, influences adolescent risky driving. Results are also discussed on the basis of cultural differences.

(M)Othering: Feminist Motherhood, Neoliberal Discourses and the Other’

Feminist theory often gravitates around the rejection and recuperation of motherhood. The recuperation of feminist motherhood demonstrates the importance of understanding the duality between feminist motherhood and the patriarchal concept of motherhood. Here, I will argue that in recuperating motherhood, feminists and non-feminists alike should also acknowledge the coexisting realities that reject it. I am specifically thinking of feminist non-motherhood but also of feminist notions of pregnancy that reject motherhood. The mother without the maternal bond or even the 'falling out of motherhood after motherhood'. These, I think, as opposed to submissive realities and resistance strategies, represent a move away from patriarchal values and create a social reality that uses something else as a parameter. In order support my argument, I will rely on a case study analysing maternal health policies and strategies, in particular feminist activists' discourses related to maternal mortality in Brazil. The data collected during this fieldwork demonstrates the importance of acknowledging non-motherhood as crucial to radical constructions of feminist motherhood. The article concludes that, sadly, there is not such thing as a post-feminist society in Brazil. The Brazilian case study demonstrates that, in fact, public policies, and the discourses built around them, are still oriented towards a neoliberal re-packaging of patriarchy that partially co-opts feminist motherhood. That is, neoliberalism partially accepts feminist motherhood as a way to reject all other feminist claims. In this sense, it its crucial for feminists and non-feminists alike to acknowledge and accept all concepts of motherhood, positive and negative. That is, it is absolutely necessary to recognise '''the 'other' ' in order not to contribute to further marginalisation of non-motherhood attitudes as promoted by neoliberal policies and discourses.

Family Structure History and Teenage Cohabitation

This study uses data from the first three waves of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, from 8,019 adolescents and their mothers, to examine links between multiple dimensions of family structure and instability over adolescents’ life courses, family functioning, peer contexts, and teenage cohabitation. Investigated explanations include an instability model, socioeconomic-stress model, and intergenerational transmission. Results from logistic regression models link single-mother and stepfamily residence during adolescence to frequent family transitions, weakened maternal bonds, teenage dating, and, ultimately, teenage cohabitation. Moreover, single motherhood and maternal cohabitation fail to predict teenage cohabitation among those living in stable households. Individual poverty and residence in a neighborhood marked by family disruption account partially for the influence of single motherhood. In addition, maternal bonds moderate the influence of maternal cohabitation on adolescent cohabitation, yielding support for an intergenerational transmission effect.