The Relationship Between Depressive Symptoms and Maternal Attachment in Mothers of Preterm Infants

The birth in which the baby is born before the 37th week of pregnancy is called premature birth. The difficult medical situation that premature babies experience after birth and the process that may need to continue in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) can affect the early stages of the mother-infant relationship. On the other hand, these conditions can affect the mother's emotional state in various aspects. This research was conducted to examine the relationship between depressive affect and stress symptoms and maternal attachment in mothers who gave birth prematurely. The study is a compilation and was created by searching the keywords determined on the subject on various academic platforms in order to access existing research in the literature, and by bringing together and reinterpreting the resulting data. According to the results of the research, depressive moods and stress levels of mothers who gave birth prematurely are significantly higher. Additionally, as the birth week decreases, the severity of depressive and stress symptoms increases. The maternal attachment score increases the lower the baby's birth week. As the duration of the baby's stay in the neonatal intensive care unit increases, the severity of the mother's stress and depressive symptoms also increases. It was determined that the stress and depressive symptom levels of mothers who knew about the possibility of premature birth from the beginning of pregnancy were higher than those of mothers who had unexpected premature birth. According to the results of the research, the quality of life of mothers who gave birth prematurely is lower than in the prenatal period. According to all these results obtained in the research, it was determined that mothers who gave birth prematurely experienced more psychological distress and were in a more clinically risky position than mothers who gave birth at term.