Concept Analysis of Maternal-Fetal Attachment

Abstract

Background: Knowing about prenatal attachment is crucial because it plays a significant role in pregnant women and their babies' health. Healthcare providers, particularly midwives, need to understand the concept of attachment between mother and unborn baby. However, surrogate terms to apply the concept of maternal-fetal attachment are found, and ambiguity on the definition remains.Objective: To provide a more precise definition of the concept of maternal-fetal attachmentMethod: The Walker and Avant's concept analysis approach was applied.Results: The attributes of maternal-fetal attachment include (i) having a positive emotion, (ii) paying attention to the physical progress of the fetus and mothers themselves, (iii) having a reciprocal interaction with the baby, (iv) monitoring and imaging the unborn baby, and (v) having a desire to protect her unborn baby from harm and increase her health practices. Maternal-fetal attachment is the affection relationship, desire for protection, building the interaction, and the emotional tie between the mother and her unborn baby during the pregnancy. This personal connection is developed, mainly when the quickening is present during the late stage of pregnancy. Maternal-fetal attachment creates an emotional relationship with the unborn baby and leads the mother to express it with behavior.Conclusion: This concept analysis provides new insight into the maternal-fetal attachment concept used for nurses and midwives in their practice.

Development of the Parent-to-Infant Bonding Scale: validation in Swedish mothers and fathers in community and clinical contexts

“…Several concept analyses of maternal bonding have de ned mother-infant bonding as a process with the maternal feelings and emotions towards the infant as its primary indicators, often described as occurring in the rst week or year of an infant's life (Altaweli & Roberts, 2010; Bicking Kinsey & Hupcey, 2013). However, the bonding process is also conceptualised as starting during pregnancy (Suryaningsih et al, 2020) and bonding is frequently measured prepartum (Trombetta et al, 2021;Wittkowski et al, 2020). Therefore, parent-infant bonding is currently used broadly to describe the parent's internal experiences regarding their child, whether born or unborn and the bonding process is assumed to continue beyond infancy (Nakić Radoš et al, 2023).…”

IbM baby Massage Training for Cadres in Kiyaran, Bantul

“…The emotional bond or bonding attachment between mother and baby that has been formed since the baby was in the womb or better known as maternal-fetal attachment (Suryaningsih, Gau, & Wantonoro, 2020)can be strengthened by the touch of the mother to her baby through massage. Baby massage is the oldest culture in the world, including in Indonesia.…”

Concept analysis of maternal-infant attachment during the weaning process

“…Some literature defined maternal-infant attachment as congruent to maternal closeness as physical and emotional interaction developed while on exclusive breastfeeding, maternal-infant relationship during pregnancy, mother as the main person feeding the child, and competitive feelings (Villar et al, 2020 ), emotional exchange, breastfeeding confidence, depression, and postpartum adaption (Kim, 2019 ). Other studies focus on the concept of attachment created during pregnancy, coined maternal-fetal-attachment (Suryaningsih et al, 2020 ). Concept analysis on maternal-infant attachment has been published, concentrating on maternal-infant bonding in general (Hill & Flanagan, 2020 ; Kinsey & Hupcey, 2013 ), maternal-infant bonding for the opioid exposed dyad (Sanders et al, 2022 ), parent-child attachment security (Ali et al, 2021 ), and maternal role of a teenage mother (Erika, 2019 ).…”