The Effectiveness of Fetal Attachment Training Program on Maternal- Fetal Relationship and Mental Health of Pregnant Women

Emotional relationship between mother and fetus is expressed as maternal fetal attachment. This attachment is the first relationship which is significantly correlated with afterborn mother-infant relationship. The purpose of present study was to study the effectiveness of maternal fetal attachment educational program on maternal fetal attachment and improvement of mental health in pregnant women.
This study was an experimental study with pretest – posttest and control group. The population consisted of pregnant women whom visited Sarem hospital from the April to the end of May of 2015. Which among them 30 people were chosen randomly, and 15 participant were assigned to the intervention group and 15 participant entered in control group. Intervention group were invited to the workshop by an invitation. In order to collecting the data, maternal fetal attachment scale (Cranley, 1981) and mental health scale (Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) were used. Workshop was held for 10 sessions of 90 minutes each, once a week. The collected data were analyzed by multivariate covariance analysis.
Results showed that prenatal attachment program improves maternal fetal attachment and mental health of the pregnant women (p > 0.001).
Considering the results, present study has important clinical applications in order to improve mental health in pregnant women. Learning attachment technics leads to improvement of prenatal attachment and mental health of pregnant moms; so by teaching these technics, we can lay the groundwork for mental health of mother and infant.