SynthesisArchives of women's mental health2023
Associations between maternal psychological distress and mother-infant bonding: a systematic review and meta-analysis.
Synthesis in Archives of women's mental health, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to 2 registered trials, which are not on this map. Cited by 80 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Department of Nurse-Midwifery and Women Health Graduate Institute of Nurse-Nurse-Midwifery
Early Life Diarrhoea Episode(s), Malnutrition, Environmental Enteric Dysfunction and Microbiome Trajectories From Birth Until 3 Years of Life ; The University of Zimbabwe Birth Cohort Study-2 (UZBCS-2)
Who cites it
80 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 110 citations in OpenAlex.
- Interactive movement- and mindfulness-based interventions for promoting parent-infant bonding in the postpartum period.The Cochrane database of systematic reviews · 2026Pooled it
- The influence of attachment and relational quality on developmental outcomes across the lifespan: a systematic review and meta-analytic insights (2014-2024).Frontiers in psychology · 2026Pooled it
- The impact of mental health disorders in pregnancy on obstetric and neonatal outcomes: A narrative review.Brain, behavior, & immunity - health · 2026Review
- Impact of live music therapy compared with storytelling on maternal depression and psychological distress in mothers of preterm infants: a secondary analysis of a randomized controlled trial.Maternal health, neonatology and perinatology · 2026Article
- Maternal Smartphone Use and Regulatory Disorders of the Infant: A Post Hoc Analysis of the SKKIPPI Cohort Study.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Beyond Trauma Exposure and Symptoms: Preconception Transdiagnostic Vulnerability and Postpartum Outcomes in Healthy Women.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Factors Associated With Maternal Depression, Anxiety and Mother-Infant Bonding in At-Risk Mothers During Pregnancy: A Cross-Sectional Observational Study.Journal of advanced nursing · 2026Observational
- Preconception Learned Helplessness as a Cognitive Vulnerability to Lower Maternal Bonding Across the Perinatal Period.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Article
- Exclusively Pumping Women's Milk Production and Pumping and Feeding Dynamics-An Online Survey.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- From Foundational Caregiving to Maternal Eudaimonic Well-Being: The Role of Parenting and Interaction Competence.Healthcare (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- A Stress Process Model of Postpartum Depressive Symptoms Among Thai Mothers: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach.Nursing reports (Pavia, Italy) · 2026Article
- Associations of Allopregnanolone and Related Steroid Hormones with Prenatal Psychosocial Distress in the Healthy Start Cohort.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2026Article
- Integrating mental health into obstetric practice: a review of collaborative care models for perinatal anxiety.Journal of perinatal medicine · 2026Review
- Patient perspectives on barriers to rTMS for peripartum depression.BMC psychiatry · 2026Article
- Perinatal depression and maternal-infant bonding disorders in mothers of full-term normal infants.African health sciences · 2026Article
- Population Perspectives on Nurturing Relational Health from Early Life: A Systematic Review Series.Clinical child and family psychology review · 2026Article
- Understanding parental bonding in the first two years after birth: exploring family predictors using growth mixture modeling.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Prevalence and attributable risk of depressive and anxiety symptoms among secondary school students: the role of maternal mental health and other risk factors.BMC psychiatry · 2026Article
- Tracing the developmental arc of matrescence: a phenomenological study of urban Indian mothers.BMC women's health · 2026Article
- Mothers' experiences of journaling during their infants' stay in a baby-friendly NICU: a hermeneutic phenomenological study.BMC pregnancy and childbirth · 2026Article
20 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
13 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeMaternal psychological distress and mother-infant bonding problems each predict poorer offspring outcomes. They are also related to each other, yet the extensive literature reporting their association has not been meta-analysed.
methodsWe searched MEDLINE, PsycINFO, CINAHL, Embase, ProQuest DTG, and OATD for English-language peer-reviewed and grey literature reporting an association between mother-infant bonding, and multiple indicators of maternal psychological distress.
resultsWe included 133 studies representing 118 samples; 99 samples (110,968 mothers) were eligible for meta-analysis. Results showed concurrent associations across a range of timepoints during the first year postpartum, between bonding problems and depression (r = .27 [95% CI 0.20, 0.35] to r = .47 [95% CI 0.41, 0.53]), anxiety (r = .27 [95% CI 0.24, 0.31] to r = .39 [95% CI 0.15, 0.59]), and stress (r = .46 [95% CI 0.40, 0.52]). Associations between antenatal distress and subsequent postpartum bonding problems were mostly weaker and with wider confidence intervals: depression (r = .20 [95% CI 0.14, 0.50] to r = .25 [95% CI 0.64, 0.85]), anxiety (r = .16 [95% CI 0.10, 0.22]), and stress (r = .15 [95% CI - 0.67, 0.80]). Pre-conception depression and anxiety were associated with postpartum bonding problems (r = - 0.17 [95% CI - 0.22, - 0.11]).
conclusionMaternal psychological distress is associated with postpartum mother-infant bonding problems. Co-occurrence of psychological distress and bonding problems is common, but should not be assumed. There may be benefit in augmenting existing perinatal screening programs with well-validated mother-infant bonding measures.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.