Mother-to-infant bonding mediates the effects of depressive and anxious postpartum symptoms on parenting stress

Abstract

A number of studies have suggested close associations between maternal postpartum mental health (depressive and anxious symptoms), mother-infant bonding, and parenting stress. However, the relationship between maternal bonding and parenting stresshas hardly been explored in published literature. This cross-sectional study explored whether maternal bonding could mediate the effect of postpartum maternal mental health on parenting stress. This study assessed maternal bonding (MPAS), depressive and anxious symptoms (EPDS; STAI), and parenting stress (PSI) at 3 months postpartum in a community sample of 105 women (M (SD) = 32.60 (4.18) years old). Spearman’s correlation analyses showed moderate to high correlations between these factors. The three mediation models run showed that mother’s MPAS partially mitigates the effects of EPDS (b = 0.71; SE = 0.217; 95% CI = 0.290/1.136) and STAI State (b = 0.39; SE = 0.113; 95% CI = 0.178/0.625) on PSI, and totally mediated the relationship between STAI Trait and PSI (b = 0.59; SE = 0.155; 95% CI = 0.303/0.912). Maternal bonding resulted to be a relevant factor in the association between maternal mental health and parenting stress. This highlights the importance of interventions focusing on mother-infant relationship to reduce parenting stress and prevent developmental difficulties in children.

Keywords:

• Maternal-infant bonding
• postpartum depression
• anxiety
• parenting stress
• mediation analyses

Acknowledgments

We thank the mothers who participated in this study.

Informed consent

Informed consent was obtained from all the subjects involved in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Institutional review board Statement

The study was conducted in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and approved by the Bio-Ethical Committee for Research at the University of Perugia (protocol code n. 2019-11 R, date of approval, 6 June 2019).

Data availability statement

The data that support this study’s findings are available on request from the corresponding author.

Additional information

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.