The role of maternal mental health, infant temperament, and couple’s relationship quality for mother-infant bonding

ABSTRACT

Background

Mother-infant bonding is the early emotional connection between mother and infant. It is affected by some aspects of maternal mental health, infant temperament, and the quality of a couple’s relationship.

Objective

This research aimed to determine the associations of the mother’s postnatal depression and anxiety symptoms, infant temperament, and the quality of the couple’s relationship with mother-infant bonding.

Methods

This cross-sectional study was conducted on a sample of 241 Croatian mothers of infants aged between one month and one year (M_age = 6.34 months). The psychological instruments used in this study were: Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire, Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale, Depression Anxiety Stress Scale, Infant Characteristic Questionnaire, and Perceived Quality of Marital Relationship Scale .

Results

Hierarchical regression analyses showed that previous maternal depression longer than two weeks, postnatal depression and anxiety symptoms, and difficult and unpredictable infant temperament were associated with self-report of poorer mother-infant bonding. Of the examined variables, the quality of the couple’s relationship was in the lowest association with mother-infant bonding.

Conclusion

Given the importance of, in particular, the maternal depression and infant temperament for poor mother-infant bonding, early intervention and the reduction of risks factors may be necessary to prevent the development of such difficulties.

KEYWORDS:

• Mother-infant bonding
• postnatal depression
• postnatal anxiety
• infant temperament
• couple’s relationship quality

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financed by the project of the Catholic University of Croatia ‘Parental mental health and contextual factors as determinants of parent-infant bonding’, under Grant HKS-2018-4.