Depressive mood, bonding failure, and abusive parenting among mothers with three-month-old babies in a Japanese community

Abstract

<p> <span style="font-size:10pt;">Object<span>ive: To investigate the relationshi</span>ps between depressive mood, bonding failure, and abusive parenting. Method: We distributed questionnaires to 1198 mothers attending a three-month postnatal health check-up in rural areas in Japan. The questionnaires assessed these three variables along with demographics. We evaluated the causal relationships by comparing different structural equation models to the data. Results: Although all the models fit the data well, the best Akaike Information Criterion was obtained from a model where both depressive mood and bonding failure predict abusive parenting, but depressive mood and bonding failure do not predict each other directly. The determinant coefficient of child abuse in the final model was 0.13. Discussion: We found depressive mood and bonding failure during postpartum period impacted negatively on mother’s parenting behaviour. Because only 13% of the variance of abusive parenting was explainable by this model, further study should be needed to identify other risk factors of child abuse. Similarly, midwives and public health nurse in community should pay attention to not only depression but also bonding failure to prevent child abuse.</span> </p

Relationship between maternal depression and bonding failure: A prospective cohort study of pregnant women

“…Another perinatal mental health issue is that of mother-infant relationship disorders. 13 Mothers with a bonding disturbance may have feelings of rejection or even hatred towards their babies, which may result in abusive parenting, 14 insecure interaction between mother and infant, 15 and disturbance of early childhood development. 16 This is termed 'bonding failure' or 'bonding disorder.'…”

“…Another perinatal mental health issue is that of mother–infant relationship disorders . Mothers with a bonding disturbance may have feelings of rejection or even hatred towards their babies, which may result in abusive parenting, insecure interaction between mother and infant, and disturbance of early childhood development . This is termed ‘bonding failure’ or ‘bonding disorder.’ Previous studies have reported several psychopathological or psychosocial factors that might be associated with bonding failure: maternal depression, the mother's personality, social support, and the characteristics and behavior of the infant .…”

Postnatal depression, maternal–infant bonding and social support: a cross-cultural comparison of Nigerian and British mothers

“…PND can trigger long-term negative and damaging effects that can majorly affect the baby (Williamson & McCutcheon, 2004;Murray, Halligan, & Cooper, 2009;Parsons, Young, Rochat, Kringelbach, & Stein, 2012). Depressed mothers may experience a mixture of emotions ranging from apathy to anger and total rejection of the care of their babies (Kitamura, Ohashi, Kita, Haruna, & Kubo, 2013). Empirical evidence suggest that this undermines early childhood interactions between mother and child (e.g.…”

“…Alongside PND, Maternal-Infant relationship Dysfunction (MID) is becoming an increasingly recognised mental health issue in obstetrics and gynaecology (Brockington, 2004a;Kitamura et al, 2013). Maternal Infant Bonding (MIB) is the care-giver-to-infant direction of the mutual and reciprocal systems of interaction in the attachment process which begins at birth, grows and endures over time (e.g.…”

“…Bowlby, 1969;Klaus & Kennell, 1976;Edhborg, Nasreen, & Kabir, 2011). However, because the aetiology of MIB failure is only minimally investigated (Kitamura et al, 2013), there are still reservations among researchers about the role PND plays in the development of MIB. Some argue that both issues are separate and merely coexist (Brockington, 2004b;Kitamura, et al, 2013).…”