Care4Mommies in action: Study protocol for promoting maternal psychological adjustment in the perinatal period [comunicação oral: poster]

Abstract

Becoming a mother is a life-changing event that requires mothers’ emotional regulation skills, namely self-compassion, to facilitate this transition. Compassion-based interventions (CBIs) may be useful, but their application to promote maternal wellbeing and mother-baby bonding has been scarcely considered. The current work aims to explore the acceptability, feasibility and preliminary efficacy of a CBI applied during pregnancy on the well-being and quality of mother-baby bonding at postpartum. To do so, two interlinked studies will be conducted. Study 1 will use a mixed-method design to investigate the acceptability and feasibility of the intervention. Nurses practicing in prenatal services and pregnant women will be asked, via focus group, on their anticipated acceptability of the CBI so that it can be tailored to the context and the individual’s needs. Then, those pregnant women will be offered the CBI as asked for pre- and post-intervention quantitative data on self-compassion related constructs, maternal-fetal attachment, and mental health; they will also be asked for their qualitative appraisal of procedure of the intervention. This will inform necessary adjustment to the CBI. Study 2 will then use a pilot cluster randomized trial to investigate the efficacy of the CBI. Mothers enrolled in group birth preparation courses (i.e., TAU) will be randomly enrolled to the CBI plus TAU or the CBI alone and assessed at pre-intervention, post-intervention prepartum, and 3-months follow at postpartum. They will be asked for quantitative data on the same constructs assessed in Study 1, except for maternal-fetal attachment that will be replaced with mother-baby bonding at follow-up. This work will allow for the development and initial efficacy evaluation of a tailored intervention that may contribute to mother’s well-being and their ability to cope with becoming a mother and bonding with their baby, which in turn may facilitate the child’s later emotional, social and cognitive development.