THE RELATION BETWEEN PRE- AND POSTNATAL MATERNAL ANXIETY/DEPRESSION AND THE QUALITY OF MOTHER/CHILD ATTACHMENT: A PROSPECTIVE STUDY IN THE FIRST YEAR AFTER BIRTH.

Maternal mental health plays a major role in promoting child and family’s wellbeing. It is well known that maternal depression and anxiety symptoms, as well as parenting stress, influence the child’s development (Feldam et al., 2009; Vismara et al., 2016; Williamson et al., 2013). The current study aimed to study the relations among mothers’ mental health, namely reported depression, anxiety and parenting stress, maternal attachment representations and child’s affective regulation. 122 mothers (mean age= 34,8; s.d.= 4.7) and their healthy children (59% boys, 41% girls), voluntarily enrolled from family healthcare services and neonatology units, were assessed at three time points - from pregnancy to 18 months of the child’s age. At all time points, mothers completed the following self-reports: the Edinburgh Pre/Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS; Benvenuti et al., 1999), the State- Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI; Spielberger e al., 1983), and the Parenting Stress Index –SF (Abidin, 2006). At the seventh month of pregnancy, they were also evaluated by means of the Adult Attachment Interview (Main et al., 1984). Between 12 and 18 months of age, children’s affect regulation was assessed through the Strange Situation Procedure (Ainsworth et al., 1978). Analyses showed significant correlations between mothers’ and children’s attachment and maternal reported depression, anxiety and parenting stress. Within a multifactorial perspective, these findings suggest that maternal mental health and psychological functioning are linked to the child’s affective regulation abilities. Therefore, families at risk should be monitored and supported since pregnancy and throughout the perinatal period to enhance sensitive caregiving behaviors.