A Longitudinal Study of Maternal Postnatal Bonding and Psychosocial Factors that Contribute to Social-Emotional Development

Abstract

In this longitudinal study, we examined how maternal bonding and psycho-social factors are associated with social-emotional problems in two-year-old children. Our data came from a birth cohort from which data were collected at four timepoints: prenatally during the third trimester, and postnatally at 3, 8 and 24 months. The participants were 1,667 mothers, of which 943 (56.6%) returned the questionnaire at each timepoint of the longitudinal study. The Children’s social-emotional problems were examined using the Brief Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment. According to linear regression analysis, maternal bonding difficulties at three and eight months, maternal expectations of the unborn baby during pregnancy, and maternal relationships within and outside the family were related to social-emotional problems in children of two years of age. The results highlight the importance of screening mothers who already prenatally have bonding problems or mothers who have bonding problems postnatally to provide effective and targeted intervention support.

Mode of birth and DNA methylation at birth, in childhood, and in adolescence: Uncovering the relationship using ALSPAC data.

“…Mother–infant bonding is defined as maternal feelings about her child and may indirectly influence offspring outcomes, including social–emotional problems (Fuchs et al, 2016; Le Bas et al, 2020; Rusanen et al, 2022), neurodevelopment (Faisal-Cury et al, 2021), and social-cognitive skills (Joas & Möhler, 2021). At the neural level, bonding enhances the attraction to infant stimuli and stimulates maternal caregiving practices, while reducing rejecting behaviors (Numan & Young, 2016).…”

Ghosts of the past?

“…For parent-child bonding to mediate the pathway between parents' and children's social competence, parental social competence assessed prior to parenthood needs to be associated with later parent-child bonding, which in turn needs to be linked to (Segrin, 2000;Segrin et al, 2016), so an association between social competence and parent-child bonding is plausible as well. Given the substantial body of research confirming how facets of the parent-child relationship quality such as parentchild reciprocity (e.g., Feldman et al, 2013) but also parent-child bonding (e.g., Groh et al, 2014;Rusanen et al, 2022) are associated with child outcomes including socialemotional competence, we have substantial reason to expect to find such an association also in our data.…”

“…For instance, negative parenting behaviours, such as harsh control or overinvolved parenting, was associated with more externalising and internalising problems in children (Pinquart, 2017;Rose et al, 2018), whereas positive parenting practices, such as parental warmth, was linked to fewer internalising problems (Rose et al, 2018). Additionally, aspects of the parentchild relationship, such as parent-child bonding, were linked to offspring outcomes including social-emotional competence (e.g., Groh et al, 2014;Rusanen et al, 2022) and own peer experiences (Kretschmer et al, 2016).…”