Expectant parents develop varying degrees of emotional affiliation with the unborn child. Interventions supporting this relationship may be beneficial given its link to maternal health behaviour during pregnancy, as well as the parental-infant bond after birth.
To identify and describe the effects of programmes and strategies that have addressed the parental-fetal relationship.
English-language primary studies, published between 2005-2015, were identified and their methodological quality was assessed. Databases used included CINAHL, Cochrane Library, MEDLINE, PsycINFO and Web of Science. Key search terms included maternal/paternal-fetal attachment, prenatal bond, parental-fetal relationship and intervention. RCTs, non-RCTs, observational and non-comparative studies, before and after studies and case studies were included.
Twenty-seven papers were included. Studies evaluated the effects of various strategies, including ultrasound and screening procedures, fetal awareness interventions, social and psychological support techniques, educational programmes and relaxation strategies. Results are inconsistent due to the diversity of interventions and significant variation in methodological quality.
There is insufficient evidence to support definitive conclusions regarding the efficacy of any included intervention. A number of limitations, such as non-probability sampling, lack of blinding, and insufficient follow-up weaken the evidence. The inclusion of fathers in only three studies reflects the overall neglect of men in research regarding the prenatal relationship. Further in-depth study of the nature of the maternal/paternal-fetal relationship may be needed in order to allow for the identification of interventions that are consistently beneficial and worthwhile.
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 3. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 25 November 2016.
All research outputs
#21,867,089
of 33,949,960 outputs
Outputs from Women & Birth
#1,022
of 1,444 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#270,876
of 451,015 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Women & Birth
#12
of 21 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 33,949,960 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 35th percentile – i.e., 35% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
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