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Maternity blues and attachment to children in mothers of full‐term normal infants
Author(s) -
Nagata M.,
Nagai S.,
Sobajima H.,
Ando T.,
Nishide Y.,
Honjo S.
Publication year - 2000
Publication title -
acta psychiatrica scandinavica
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.849
H-Index - 146
eISSN - 1600-0447
pISSN - 0001-690X
DOI - 10.1034/j.1600-0447.2000.101003209.x
Subject(s) - anxiety , incidence (geometry) , medicine , edinburgh postnatal depression scale , blues , psychology , psychiatry , clinical psychology , depressive symptoms , art , physics , optics , art history
Objective: This study was conducted for evaluating incidence of maternity blues in Japan, in addition to clarifying the relationship between maternity blues and maternal attachment, and the factors involved. Method: A questionnaire survey was conducted on 417 mothers having given birth at the Nagoya Daini Red Cross Hospital. The questionnaire consisted of Zung's self‐rating depression scale, and a ‘postpartum maternal attachment’ scale, consisting of subscales on ‘core maternal attachment’ and ‘anxiety regarding children’. The survey was conducted 5.2 days±1.46 postpartum. Results: ZSDS scores over 40 amounted to 66.8% of the responses. Analysis of the two scales revealed significant correlation/inverse correlation between ‘maternity blues’ and ‘anxiety regarding children’/‘core maternal attachment’. Path analysis revealed ‘maternity blues’ to be influencing ‘core maternal attachment’ and ‘anxiety regarding children’. Conclusion: It was found that the incidence of maternity blues may be higher in Japan than was believed previously, and that an intimate association exists between ‘maternity blues’ and ‘postpartum maternal attachment’.