Maternal narratives on preterm birth and infant hospitalization: implications for mother-infant relationship.

Introduction: The sudden interruption of the typical transition to parenthood constituted by preterm delivery and the disruption of the typical mother-infant relationship during infant hospitalization, require mothers to reorganize their own representations of the birth, child and themselves as parents. All of these factors may adversely affect the emerging mother-premature infant relationship. Method: The aim of this study was to investigate implications of the experiences of preterm delivery and infant hospitalization for mothers and mother-infant relationship. Thirty mothers of premature infants (28-32 g.a.) were interviewed during infant hospitalization with a semi-structured interview intended to review the mother’s attitudes toward the pregnancy, the delivery and the infant’s recovery. Results/conclusions: The inductive thematic analysis of the interviews revealed three themes concerning: the construction of maternal identity; the construction of the representation of the bond with the infant; the relationship with health care providers and the external world. Prematurity and the alteration in their parenting role in the NICU affect the experience of the construction of the woman’s sense of herself as a mother representing a limbo between being and feeling as a mother. Furthermore during infant hospitalization mothers cannot exhibit crucial attachment behaviors and simultaneously cannot recognize the typical attachment behaviors in the infant. This with the inability to keep the baby with them, and the constant feeling of risk in which the child is perceived, made it difficult to build a representation of the infant’s own identity and to establish a bond with him/her. The study shows how preterm delivery and the subsequent hospitalization of the infant have implications on maternal representation of herself as a mother and the process of the development of mother-infant relationship. Implication for preventive interventions are addressed.