The associations between childbirth experience, early mother-child contact and maternal bonding

The thesis is aimed at perinatal factors affecting the emotional bond between a mother and a child (boding) during the first weeks postpartum. The literature review is divided into three chapters. The first chapter discusses the childbirth, the experience of childbirth and the factors affecting a subjective evaluation of the childbirth by a parturient. The second chapter follows up with an overview of findings concerning the initial afterbirth moments, and the interaction between a mother and a child during early contact. The third chapter introduces the concept of bonding. It describes its manifestations, possible measuring methods, and factors influencing its quality. The research part analyzes perinatal factors affecting bonding on a sample of 1108 mothers with the use of generalized linear regression. The independent variables are: mode of birth, the evaluation of childbirth experience by mother, and the process of early contact between a mother and a child. The results show that bonding during the first weeks postpartum was not affected by the mode of birth or by the parturient's evaluation of the childbirth experience. A significant effect was found in the occurrence of early contact between a mother and a child; mothers who had contact with the child during the first postpartum hour reported..