Quality of Mother–Infant Attachment after Physiological Birth

Background childbirth affects the quality of mother–neonate attachment after delivery. the aim of this study was to compare the quality of mother–infant attachment in physiological delivery with non-physiological delivery after birth. materials and methods a case-control study was conducted on 60 women (n = 30 non- physiological delivery, 30 physiological delivery) referred to shahid yahyanejad hospital (babol city, iran) durring 2015 to 2016. subjects in the physiological delivery group received special care from the midwife or significant other, labor mobility, spontaneous progress of labor, and non-pharmacological methods. subjects in the non-physiological delivery group received medical interventions including birth aids, use of analgesics, and local anesthesia. quality of mother-infant attachment after delivery was assessed with a valid persian version of avant’s mother-infant attachment. multivariate analysis of variance (mancova) was also used to assess the differences in two groups. results the mean of mother–infant attachment scores in the physiological delivery compared with non-physiological delivery group were as follows: emotional behavior (2.29 ± 38.7 vs. 1.56 ± 27.23), proximity behavior (1.82 ± 27.30 vs. 1.49 ± 20.70), caring behavior (1.17 ± 15.77 vs. 1.13 ± 10.80), and total score (4.58 ± 81.72 vs. 3.66 ± 58.73). results showed that in all three dimensions of attachment (emotional, caring, and proximity behavior), physiological delivery showed higher scores than did non-physiological delivery (p < 0.05). conclusion the quality of mother–infant attachment (emotional, proximity, and caring behaviors) was higher in women with physiological birth than non-physiological birth.