Mother- and father-to-infant emotional involvement

A mother’s specific emotional and hormonal state after childbirth ensures her emotional involvement and adequate parental behaviour. Soon after delivery, or even in late pregnancy, the mother’s emotional state—in particular, an increased sensitivity—becomes fully adapted to the identification and satisfaction of the infant’s physical and psychological needs. Winnicott (1956, 1960) was perhaps one of the first authors to point out the presence of a particular emotional state in recently delivered mothers—‘primary maternal preoccupation’, referring to the mother’s correct identification and immediate satisfaction of the infant’s physical and psychological needs. Winnicott (1990) later defined and described four main tasks to be fulfilled in the maternal role, including the emotional involvement with the child, which he termed ‘holding’. Holding tasks are: (1) to provide protection and care to the child, (2) to take into account the child’s limitations and dependency status, (3) to provide the necessary care for the child’s growth and development, and (4) to love the child. In the meantime, Yalom et al. (1968) and Pitt (1973) both described the ‘postpartum/maternity blues—a transient state of emotional dysphoria, emerging within a few hours to 2 weeks after childbirth, in about 50 to 70% of puerperal women, and characterized by intermittent mild fatigue, tearfulness, worry, difficulty in thinking, and sleep disturbances. Progesterone and oestrogen levels, which gradually increase during pregnancy, fall suddenly after delivery, returning to prepregnancy levels in just 3 days. This rapid decline, the most severe threat to a women’s hormonal and emotional balance, has been proposed as the main cause of postpartum/maternity blues (e.g. Pitt 1973; Yalomand et al. 1968). The mother’s behavioural sensitivity to such a drop in reproductive hormones was later associated with higher reactivity to the infant’s stimuli and greater proximity with the neonate (e.g. Barrett and Fleming 2011; Carter 2005; Fleming et al. 1997; Miller and Rukstalis 1999), and was proposed as serving the function of eliciting mother-to-infant involvement, to ensure that the infant receives the required care to survive (e.g. Carter 2005; Figueiredo 2003; Pedersen 1997). The evolutionary point of view had its clearest proponent in John Bowlby (1969/1982, 1980) who proposed the presence of a behavioural system (that is, an organized set of behaviours) in parents—the ‘caregiving system’, to guarantee the proximity and protection of the child.