Prenatal stimulation programmes used for enhancing postnatal bonding

Abstract

Prenatal stimulation programmes enhance bonding that serves as a protective factor after birth. The Baby Bond stimulation programme is a sensory focussed prenatal stimulation programme implemented during the third trimester of pregnancy. The purpose of this study was to determine the effectiveness of this programme for bonding six weeks after birth. This study employed an experimental, pre-test post-test randomised controlled intervention design. All participants completed the Prenatal Attachment Inventory (PAI) as pre-test and received standard prenatal care. The experimental group received The Baby Bond sensory focussed stimulation programme and the control group a non-specific stimulation programme. At six weeks postnatally all mothers completed the Maternal Attachment Inventory (MAI) as post-test. The results indicated that the average maternal age at the pre-test was 27 years at 31.8 weeks of gestation. The total difference in the pre-test (PAI) of the experimental (66.45 ±7.04) and control group (66.36 ± 10.03) was not significant (p = 1). The mean difference for the post-test (MAI) for the experimental group (101.03 ± 3.62) was also not significantly different to the control group (94.85 ± 11.87; p = 0.53). However, a medium practical significant difference (d = 0.52) was identified between the experimental and control groups. The data indicated that a sensory focussed stimulation programme, such as The Baby Bond seemed to enhance the bonding process experienced by mothers, suggesting that larger sample sizes should be investigated in future. Expanded inclusion criteria should however be considered, including wider age ranges and multi-parity