Moms’ emotional bonds with their babies after birth predicted during pregnancy

Child Development
Published December 4, 2018 (News release from the Society for Research in Child Development)
A strong bond between mothers’ and their babies are key to the children’s development, but this bond does not develop instantly. This study shows that responses to images of infants’ facial cues change over the course of pregnancy and early motherhood, with some mothers showing more marked changes than others. This variation in turn is associated with mothers’ later reports of their emotional bonds with their babies after birth.

Canadian co-author: David Haley, University of Toronto – haley@utsc.utoronto.ca