THE ROLE OF SPOUSE INTIMACY, ATTACHMENT STYLES AND MOTHER POSITIVE AND NEGATIVE AFFECT IN PREDICTING MOTHER-CHILD EMOTIONAL BOND IN DURING PREGNANCY

Pregnancy period is a one of the most important stages in the life of women and in this period damage to the mother-child relationship causes creating grounds for mental disorders in a child. The most important factors related to mother-child relationship include spouse intimacy, attachment styles and mother positive and negative affect. As a result, Present research aimed to investigate the role of spouse intimacy, attachment styles and mother positive and negative affect in predicting mother-child emotional bond in during pregnancy.

This study was a cross-sectional from type of correlation. The research population was included pregnant women referred to clinics and doctor's office of obstetrics and gynecology of Urmia city in the first half of summer, 2018. In this research, 270 people were selected by random cluster sampling method. The research tools were questionnaire of spouse intimacy (Walker & Tompson, 1983), attachment styles (Van Oudenhoven & et al, 2003), positive and negative affect (Watson & et al, 1988) and mother-child emotional bond (Kitamura & et al, 2015). Data were analyzed by Pearson correlation coefficient and multiple regression methods.

The finding showed that spouse intimacy, secure attachment style and positive affect had a positive and significant relationship with mother-child emotional bond and preoccupied and fearful attachment styles and negative affect had a negative and significant relationship with mother-child emotional bond (p<0/05), but dismissing attachment style hadn’t a significant relationship with mother-child emotional bond (p>0/05). Also the variables of spouse intimacy, attachment styles and mother positive and negative affect were able to predict 18/4 percent of the variance of mother-child emotional bond (p<0/05).

The results indicate that spouse intimacy, secure attachment style and positive affect create the mother-child emotional bond in during pregnancy and fearful and preoccupied attachment styles and negative affect prevent the mother-child emotional bond in during pregnancy.