The relation between postpartum maternal traumatic stresss and bonding

Özet

Objectives: Postpartum post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is an important and still underrecognized problem that affects women and their families. The psychological well-being of the mother is critical to attachment, which is funda mental to the infant’s psychological development. This study was conducted to determine the effect of traumatic stress on mother-infant bonding in the postpartum period and to examine risk factors. Methods: This was a descriptive study conducted with 360 women who had infants 6 months of age. The participants completed a personal information form, the City Birth Trauma Scale (CityBiTS), and the Postpartum Bonding Question naire (PBQ), and the data were analyzed. The distribution of the data was evaluated using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, and the Kruskal-Wallis, Mann-Whitney U test, and logistic regression analysis were used to analyze the data. Results: The mean age of the study participants was 29.24±3.52 years, and the majority had a bachelor’s degree (76.1%). The mean total CityBiTS score was 20.23±14.32 (possible range: 0-60). The CityBiTS data revealed that 90.6% (n=326) of the women had at least 1 or more symptoms of trauma and 16.4% (n=59) women in the sample met all of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition diagnostic criteria for PTSD. It was observed that the CityBiTS scores increased in parallel with the PBQ scores. Emergency cesarean section, vaginal examination by several different people during labor, and complications for mother or infant increased the traumatic stress score. A history of abuse, an unwanted pregnancy, and no opportunity to provide skin-to-skin contact had negative effects on postpartum bonding (p<0.05). Conclusion: In this study, 16.4% of the participants met the criteria for a diagnosis of PTSD, and a greater traumatic stress score negatively affected mother-infant bonding. Women at risk of PTSD and poor bonding should be followed up closely in the postpartum period and provided with the appropriate care.