Bonding is an emotional and biological process that creates a bond between a mother and her child and is among others important for easier breastfeeding, faster recovery of the mother etc. It is important to support it by an early contact between the mother and her newborn child. The diploma thesis aims to compare the discourse regarding mother-infant bonding and its support in our country around the year of 1980, when the rooming-in system appears, up to the present, with the milestone between 1998 and 2000, when the Centre of Active Birth was established as a result of changes in birth care that occurred then and which started to offer a different kind of care from the model that was known and used in the Czech Republic at that time. Emphasis will be put on the development of the discourse, changes in birth and after-birth care it has brought and changes of its participants and the role which women have as receivers of care. The theoretic part introduces the relatively little-known term 'bonding' and its support from the biological and social points of view, then discourse analysis will be applied in the methodological and experimental parts of the thesis. Analysed materials included media communication both in printed and electronic forms available at each analysed period. Keywords:...

Magister Artium (Psychology) - MA(Psych) / While community health workers possess valuable insight into health care delivery in South Africa, their voices and experiences are seldom sought in the acquisition of knowledge surrounding relevant social concerns. This research aimed to explore community health workers’ perspectives of mother–infant bonding within the first 1000 days of life. The first 1000 days of a child’s life are a delicate yet highly consequential period affecting future physical, cognitive, and socio-emotional growth. The bond between mother and infant within the first 1000 days is especially critical as it is within the bounds of this relationship that a child is fed, cared for, and kept safe. Furthermore, mother–infant bonding lays an essential foundation for future development. However, there is a paucity of contextualized literature, particularly regarding mother–infant bonding in the first 1000 days. In practice, mother–infant interventions are often delivered by community health workers. Through their work, community health workers gain a wealth of knowledge and information about the experiences and practices of bonding within their community. Their insights are a potentially untapped resource which could be used to supplement research and interventions with local, contextualized wisdom. The aim of this research was to explore community health workers’ perspectives of mother–infant bonding within the first 1000 days in Khayelitsha, South Africa. The study utilized a qualitative methodological framework and an exploratory research design. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with 15 experienced community health workers, who were purposively selected from a non-governmental organization located in Khayelitsha, South Africa. Data were thematically analysed, and five primary themes emerged from the analysis, namely: (1) the importance of the first 1000 days; (2) the centrality of mother–infant bonding within the first 1000 days; (3) effective approaches to bonding are simple, natural, and free; (4) the inhibitors of mother–infant bonding; and (5) the need for support. Trustworthiness and researcher reflexivity practices were integrated throughout the research process. Ethics considerations were prioritized, and included providing informed consent, ensuring confidentiality and anonymity, and informing participants of their rights as stipulated by the University of the Western Cape Biomedical Research Ethics Committee.

Postpartum psychopathology is a well-documented risk factor for impaired mother-infant bonding and thus child development. Increasingly, the focus of research in this area lies on maternal adverse childhood experiences that mothers bring into the relationship with their own baby, especially regarding the possible intergenerational transmission of traumatic experiences. Several studies showed that there is no direct link between child maltreatment and mother-infant bonding as one part of mother-child relationship, but that this link is mediated by postpartum psychopathology. To date, few studies examined differential effects between sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, and physical and emotional neglect, especially in a clinical sample. The aim of this study is to investigate whether the relationship between child maltreatment, psychopathology, and mother-infant bonding can be found for different forms of child maltreatment in patients of a mother-baby unit. Our sample consisted of 330 mothers of a mother-baby-unit in a psychosomatic clinic, who filled out self-report measures at time of admission. Mothers reported on maternal child maltreatment history with the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, on current psychopathology with the Brief Symptom Inventory, and on mother-infant bonding with the Postpartum Bonding Questionnaire. Mediation analyses were performed with psychopathology as mediator, child maltreatment history as independent, and mother-infant bonding as dependent variable. There was no total effect of child maltreatment on mother-infant bonding. However, there were significant indirect effects of child maltreatment in general (ab = 0.09) and of the various forms of child maltreatment on mother-infant bonding via psychopathology (0.16 ≤ ab ≤ 0.34). The strongest effect was found for emotional abuse. After controlling for psychopathology, the direct effect of physical abuse on mother-infant bonding presented as a negative significant effect. This indicates that the more severe the physical abuse experienced, the better the self-reported bonding. A similar, but non-significant trend was found for sexual abuse. Our findings highlight the importance of assessing neglect forms of child maltreatment as well as abuse in women during the perinatal period. It further supports initial findings that different forms of child maltreatment can have differential effects on mother-infant bonding as one aspect of the mother-child relationship. Further research should include observational data to compare with self-report measures.