Mother-infant bonding during the early postnatal period in a sample of Chinese primiparous mothers

Abstract

This study aims to investigation the mother-infant bonding impairment among Chinese primiparous mothers in the early postpartum period. Totally, there were 119 primiparous mothers were conveniently recruited at the 42 days postpartum from a local hospital in Wuhan, China. Data on the social-demographic characteristics, clinical information, prenatal depressive and anxious mood, and mother-infant bonding were collected using a self-designed basic information questionnaire and the Chinese-version of Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire(C-PBQ). The results showed that the total score of C-PBQ was 14.62±10.35. The prevalence of reported mild bonding disturbances and potential rejections of infants were 21.8% and 1.68%, respectively, while no one reported explicit rejections. During pregnancy, only 5.0% of women experienced depressive mood, while 11.8% with anxiety. Although a higher score of C-PBQ was observed in women with prenatal anxiety compared to those without (P<0.05), no significant effects of anxiety during pregnancy on the mother-infant bonding was found based on the regression analysis. Therefore, close attention should be paid to mother-infant bonding impairment for Chinese new mother in the early postpartum period. Investigating methods to enhance perinatal maternal bonding and reducing anxiety in pregnancy is needed.

Predictors of Parent‐Infant Bonding Among Postpartum Chinese Mothers and Fathers

“…The proportions of women and men whose PBQ scores exceeded the cutoff score of 25/26 for some level of impairment in parent‐infant bonding in the early postpartum period were 19.4% and 15.7%, respectively. These proportions are lower than those reported for postpartum women in Spain (24.3%), 36 India (24%), 37 and Wuhan, China (23.5%), 38 suggesting that the couples in our study had a lower risk of impaired parent‐infant bonding. In contrast to previous studies, 6,39 the mothers in this study scored significantly higher on the PBQ at 6 weeks postpartum than the fathers, indicating that at this time, the mothers had more difficulties than the fathers in establishing an emotional bond with the infant.…”