Prenatal attachment, depression and dyadic adjustment in couples expecting a baby

Abstract

Pregnancy is a period that entails many changes in the woman’s life, man and consequently in the couple’s life. Previous studies have shown that parents’ attachment to the baby develops in gestational period and correlates with prenatal depression and quality of marital adjustment. They also proved to have an impact on transition to parenthood and overall emotional involvement between the triad. With this study, we aim compare pre-natal attachment and marital adjustment perception between future mothers and fathers in the 27-40 weeks of pregnancy, and the effect of the marital relationship on attachment. We also address mothers’ gestational depression to control its effect. After allowing inform consent, 220 Portuguese couples aged between 18 and 50 years, completed the Portuguese versions of DAS-Dyadic Adjustment Scale (Spanier, 1976), EPDS-Edinburgh Depression Scale (Cox, et al., 1987), MAAS-Maternal Antenatal Attachment Scale and PAASPaternal Antenatal Attachment Scale (Condon, 1993). Results shown that woman, compared to men, present a higher level of prenatal attachment to their baby, still in the womb. For both, dyadic adjustment, namely cohesion, correlates significantly to prenatal attachment. Linear regressions conducted per gender, reinforced the impact of the couples’ cohesion on the emotional bond developed with the unborn baby. Woman didn’t present significant depression symptoms. Although prenatal depression scores have no relation to prenatal attachment, they correlate with the Dyadic Adjustment (cohesion and satisfaction). These results follow previous findings and highlight the importance of including both men and woman, expecting parents in studying the transition to parenthood. Also, we argue that marital family subsystem has a close impact on the future parental subsystem, and on the adaptation and transition to the next challenging milestone on the family life cycle - parenthood.