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Correlates of prenatal and postnatal mother-to-infant bonding quality: A systematic review
Open accessAbstract
BACKGROUND: Mother-to-infant bonding is defined as the emotional tie experienced by a mother towards her child, which is considered to be important for the socio-emotional development of the child. Numerous studies on the correlates of both prenatal and postnatal mother-to-infant bonding quality have been published over the last decades. An up-to-date systematic review of these correlates is lacking, however. OBJECTIVE: To systematically review correlates of prenatal and postnatal mother-to-infant bonding quality in the general population, in order to enable targeted interventions. METHODS: MEDLINE, Embase, CINAHL, and PsychINFO were searched through May 2018. Reference checks were performed. Case-control, cross-sectional or longitudinal cohort studies written in English, German, Swedish, Spanish, Norwegian, French or Dutch defining mother-to-infant bonding quality as stipulated in the protocol (PROSPERO CRD42016040183) were included. Two investigators independently reviewed abstracts, full-text articles and extracted data. Methodological quality was assessed using the National Institute of Health Quality Assessment Tool for Observational Cohort and Cross-sectional studies and was rated accordingly as poor, fair or good. Clinical and methodological heterogeneity were examined. MAIN RESULTS: 131 studies were included. Quality was fair for 20 studies, and poor for 111 studies. Among 123 correlates identified, 3 were consistently associated with mother-to-infant bonding quality: 1) duration of gestation at assessment was positively associated with prenatal bonding quality, 2) depressive symptoms were negatively associated with postnatal mother-to-infant bonding quality, and 3) mother-to-infant bonding quality earlier in pregnancy or postpartum was positively associated with mother-to-infant bonding quality later in time. CONCLUSION: Our review suggests that professionals involved in maternal health care should consider monitoring mother-to-infant bonding already during pregnancy. Future research should evaluate whether interventions aimed at depressive symptoms help to promote mother-to-infant bonding quality. More high-quality research on correlates for which inconsistent results were found is needed.
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“Three prior narrative reviews (Edwards, 2017; McNamara et al., 2019; Tichelman et al., 2019) reported that maternal depression, anxiety, and stress symptoms were associated with mother-infant bonding problems”
From Associations between maternal psychological distress and mother-infant bonding: a systematic review and meta-analysis (2023) · cites this paper as Tichelman et al., 2019
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Metadata
- Authors
- Tichelman, E., Westerneng, M., Witteveen, A. B., van Baar, A. L., van der Horst, H. E., de Jonge, A., Berger, M. Y., Schellevis, F. G., Burger, H., & Peters, L. L.
- Affiliations
- University Medical Center Groningen (NL)
- Amsterdam Public Health (NL)
- Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research (NL)
- Corresponding author
- Tichelman, Elke
- ORCID
- Venue
- PLOS ONE
- Publisher
- Public Library of Science (PLoS)
- Published
- 2019-09-24
- Volume
- 14
- Issue
- 9
- Pages
- e0222998
- ISSN
- 1932-6203 (ISSN-L)
- PMC
- PMC6759162
- OpenAlex
- W2975920003
- Cited by
- 224
- References
- 63
- Citations by year
- 2026: 41 · 2025: 36 · 2024: 27 · 2023: 48 · 2022: 29 · 2021: 27 · 2020: 15 · 2019: 1
- FWCI
- 2.94
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- PLoS ONE (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Pure Amsterdam UMC (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Amsterdam UMC (VU Amsterdam) - Institutional Repository (publishedVersion, other-oa)
- University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- RePEc: Research Papers in Economics (submittedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Utrecht University Repository (Utrecht University) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- University of Groningen research database (University of Groningen / Centre for Information Technology) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Universitair Medisch Centrum Groningen
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Maternal Mental Health During Pregnancy and Postpartum
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Attachment and Relationship Dynamics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Pediatrics, Perinatology and Child Health › Infant Development and Preterm Care
- Keywords
- prenatal bonding, maternal depressive symptoms, gestational age, social-emotional development, pregnancy, postpartum period, maternal care
- MeSH terms
- Child Development, Female, Humans, Infant, Mother-Child Relations, Mothers, Pregnancy, Prenatal Care, Depression, Postpartum, Postpartum Period
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