Peer-reviewed article
Mother-infant bonding and postpartum depression during the COVID-19 pandemic: a risk for nurturing care and child development
Ana Paula Scoleze Ferrer ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined mother-infant bonding and postpartum depression in 127 mothers and babies at a public hospital in São Paulo during the first 18 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The research found a high prevalence of postpartum depression (29.1%) and identified that both postpartum depression and unplanned pregnancies were associated with weaker mother-infant bonding. The authors suggest that impaired bonding could negatively affect child development, with pandemic-related insecurity likely contributing to the high depression rates.
Key points
- 29.1% of postpartum women showed probable postpartum depression during the pandemic period
- Postpartum depression was significantly associated with impaired mother-infant bonding (p=0.001)
- Unplanned pregnancies were also associated with higher risk of impaired bonding (p=0.004)
- The study suggests pandemic-related insecurity was a contributing factor to the high prevalence of depression
- Impaired bonding may affect future development of children born during this period
Limitations
This is a cross-sectional study without a pre-pandemic comparison group, so causality cannot be firmly established or the specific impact of COVID-19 isolated from other factors. The study is limited to one public maternity hospital in São Paulo and may not be generalizable to other settings or populations.
Abstract
Objective: The COVID-19 pandemic Increased the risk of impairing the mother -infant bonding. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the early bond established between mother and infant and postpartum depression (PPD) in pregnancies that occurred during the pandemic period, to identify the factors that may have influenced these outcomes and to verify if there was an association between bonding and probable PPD. Methods: This is a cross-sectional study of postpartum women from a public maternity hospital in the city of S & atilde;o Paulo conducted from February to June 2021, involving 127 mother -baby dyads. The initial data were collected in the immediate postpartum period and between 21-45 days after birth, using a semi -structured questionnaire on sociodemographic characteristics, gestational and birth conditions, and baby characteristics; the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS) and Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire (PBQ) were used to evaluate PPD and bonding, respectively. Results: The presence of probable PPD and unplanned pregnancies were associated with higher PBQ score and risk to impaired bonding (p = 0.001 and p = 0.004, respectively). EPDS showed a high prevalence of PPD (29.1%) and was not associated with any Studied variable. Probably, this high prevalence of probable PPD was due to the context of insecurity secondary to the pandemic. Conclusions: We observed an increase in the prevalence of probable PPD and unplanned pregnancies during the first 18 months of the pandemic, which were associated with worse scores in mother -infant bonding. The impaired bond can affect the future development of children born during this period.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- No intervention was tested; this is an observational study measuring outcomes during the pandemic period
- Population
- 127 postpartum women and their infants from a public maternity hospital in São Paulo, Brazil, during February-June 2021
Key finding
Probable postpartum depression prevalence: 29.1%