Promoting Mother-to-Baby Attachment to Prevent Postpartum Depression: An Intervention Study.
Weak attachment to the fetus during pregnancy has been linked to postpartum depression and child abuse. A longitudinal study was conducted to verify the hypothesis that postpartum depression decreases when bonding between the mothers to fetus is promoted during pregnancy. This study aimed to verify the hypothesis that postpartum depression decreases when bonding is promoted during pregnancy.
Child abuse is a major global social concern. The number of child abuse cases handled by child consultation centers in Japan in 2015 was 103,260, a number that has been increasing each
year. It has been reported that newborn babies account for 60% of all children who die as a result of abuse in Japan. Ninety percent of mothers who committed abuse reported that they had an
unplanned pregnancy, and 80% reported that they did not receive the Maternal and Child Health Handbook.
The average number of gestational weeks of the participants in this study was 21±5.7 weeks. Since the second trimester is a stable period of pregnancy, it is a good time for a mother to physically
and psychologically adapt to pregnancy. Also, it is a period when both primiparas and multiparas become aware of fetal movement. Therefore, it is believed that this was a psychologically appropriate time of pregnancy to conduct the present study.
About 19% of the participants were found in a depressive state in the antepartum period, which was slightly higher than the approximately 15% cited in previous studies.15-17 It is possible that depression during pregnancy may be increasing, and health care providers must pay attention to the fact that about 20% of women may be suffering from depression even during what might
appear as a relatively uneventful pregnancy.
Women Health Open J. 2019; 4(1): 15- 20. doi: 10.17140/WHOJ-4-128
