The Relationship between Postnatal Attachment and Fear of Childbirth

The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship between mother-infant attachment and fear of childbirth in the postpartum period.

The data of this cross-sectional study were collected from 142 puerperal women who attended Kağızman Şahindere Family Health Center No. 1 and 2, Kars/Turkey and had a normal spontaneous birth between 2017 and 2019. The questionnaire developed by the researcher, WIJMA Birth Expectation/Experience Scale Version B and Mother-Infant Attachment Scale were used to collect data. Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for normal distribution eligibility tests, Shapiro-Wilk test, Independent Samples T test after eligibility, One-Way Anova Tukey test, Kruskal Wallis H test, Pearson Correlation, and Bonferroni post-hoc test in dependent and independent variables were used to analyze data.

While the total average score of puerperal women from the WIJMA Birth Expectation/Experience Scale was 86.83+28.23, the total average score they received from the Mother-infant Attachment Scale was 9.40+2.21. There was a moderately positive significant relationship between the scores puerperal women received from the WIJMA Birth Expectation/Experience Scale and the Mother-infant Attachment Scale (p<0.05). It was found that the higher the score on the WIJMA Birth Expectation/Experience Scale, the higher the score on the Mother-Infant Attachment Scale.

It was found that as the fear of childbirth increased, the mother-infant attachment decreased. So it could be suggested that the pregnant women should be directed to the childbirth preparation classes to prevent negative effects on the postnatal attachment level of women due to their fear of childbirth.