|
Description:
|
The present study investigated the effects of self -criticism , dependency , object representation , and risk upon maternal antenatal attachment in women hospitalized during pregnancy with high risk of maternal or fetal demise . Ninety -one women completed the Depressive Experiences Questionnaire (Blatt , D'Affliti , and Quinlan , 1976 ) , the Object Relations Inventory (Blatt et al . ,1992 ) , the Maternal Antenatal Attachment Scale (Condon , 1973 ) , the Edinburgh Postpartum Depression Scale (Cox , Holden , and Sagovsky , 1987 ) and the Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale (Unauthored , 1999 ) within the first three days of hospital admission . No relationship was indicated between maternal representations and antenatal fetal attachment , nor was there a correlation between maternal representation and fetal representation . Self -critical mothers significantly scored lower in the measure of antenatal attachment quality and endorsed a higher number of depressive symptoms . Mothers hospitalized because of maternal risk were not significantly different in their reports of attachment than were mothers hospitalized because of fetal risk , and no significant differences were found across severity of risk factors as evaluated by the Hobel Risk Assessment . Consistent with previous research , depressive symptomatology was associated with a lower quality of maternal antenatal attachment overall . Results suggest that maternal narratives may not be significantly linked with reported antenatal attachment and depressive symptoms have a stronger association with reductions of antenatal attachment than dependent or self -critical tendencies . |