Health care climate, post-traumatic stress disorder and mothers and fathers’ attachment to their babies

Abstract

Post-natal attachment is relevant to future parent-child relationship and child development outcomes. Previous attachment research focus mainly on mother-child bonds and fathers’ perception is often excluded, thus, studies accessing both mothers and fathers variables enables a more complete perspective on family relationships. Previous research highlighted the PTSD negative effect on mothers’ attachment. The objective of this cross-sectional study with 190 Portuguese couples, whose baby was born less than a year, is to explore the correlations and effects of health care climate and mothers’ PTSD symptoms associated to childbirth, on mothers and fathers post-natal attachment to their baby. 190 couples aged from 19- 47 (M=32.11; SD=5.92), mostly married, answered PPQ-Perinatal Posttraumatic Questionnaire, MHCCQModified Health Care Climate Questionnaire, MPAS-Maternal Attachment Scale and PPAS-Post-natal Attachment Scale. Results indicate that for mothers, age, education and climate predict PTSD symptoms; and age, PTSD symptoms and climate predict their attachment. For men, being a newly parent and perceived health care climate provided to the partner, act as predictors for Post-natal attachment. In summary, PTSD symptoms have a negative effect on mother’s-baby attachment. Health care climate is a relevant variable with an impact on attachment for both parents; furthermore, mothers’ and fathers’ attachment scores are correlated. Future research should continue to address this interdependency. This study may contribute to deepen the knowledge on the impact of health care conditions and services during pregnancy and following birth time, to the primary affective bond between parents and their new baby.