Breastfeeding Duration, Maternal Emotional Availability, and Infant-Mother Attachment

• In Event: Poster Session 10
  In Poster Session: PS 10 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

Although linkages between breastfeeding and infants’ health outcomes have been well-established, less is known about the effects of breastfeeding on infants’ socioemotional outcomes, specifically attachment outcomes. Attachment theory states that the quality of parenting, rather than practices of parenting, predicts quality of attachment (Bowlby, 1969). Breastfeeding may represent a unique intersection of both parenting practice and quality, as it is a type of parenting practice that may lead the mother to be more sensitive and responsive to her infant’s cues (Krol & Grossman, 2018). Furthermore, breastfeeding requires the mother to have more skin-to-skin contact with the infant, which promotes both mother’s bond with her infant and infant’s quality of attachment to the mother. Thus, the current study explored the direct and indirect linkages between breastfeeding duration and infant-mother attachment, through the quality of mothering.

Participants in the current study included 167 infants and their mothers. At 1, 3, 6, 9, and 12 months, mothers were asked if they were breastfeeding and, if they had stopped, at what infant age did they stop. These items were recoded into one continuous numerical variable, to indicate the infant age (in months) when breastfeeding was ceased, with a 0 indicating infants who were never breastfed, and a 12 indicating infants who were still being breastfed at 12 months. At the same time points, Emotional Availability Scale (EAS; Biringen, 2000) was used to measure mothers’ emotional availability (EA) toward infants during the day and bedtime. Infant-mother attachment security was assessed at 12 and 18 months using the Attachment Q-Sort (AQS; Waters et al., 1995).

To test the mediating role of maternal emotional availability in the relation between breastfeeding duration and attachment security, the direct and indirect effects were computed using the bootstrapping procedure using the lavaan package in R (Rosseel, 2012). Separate models were created for daytime parenting (Table 1) and bedtime parenting (Table 2). Because literature shows that mothers’ decision to breastfeed is highly influenced by her socioeconomic status (Glenn & Quillin, 2007), socioeconomic risk was included as a covariate in both models. After covarying out the effects of socioeconomic risk, results suggested that longer breastfeeding duration across the year was directly associated with infant attachment security at 12 and 18 months when bedtime EA was controlled (β = .04, 95% CI [.003, .075]; β = .05, 95% CI [.015, .089], respectively), and directly associated with attachment at 18 months when daytime EA was controlled (β = .05, 95% CI [.012, .082]). The indirect effects of breastfeeding on attachment at 12 and 18 months through daytime EA were also significant (β = .01, 95% CI [.001, .024]; β = .01, 95% CI [.001, .027], respectively), but not through bedtime EA.

Findings suggest the importance of breastfeeding duration on both quality of mothering during daytime and infant-mother attachment. Efforts to promote and encourage breastfeeding, especially in new mothers at higher socioeconomic risk, are warranted by healthcare providers and policy makers.

Authors

• Christine Kim, Pennsylvania State University, University Park
  Presenting Author

• Douglas M Teti, The Pennsylvania State University
  Non-Presenting Author