Correlation Between Perception of Birth and Maternal Infant Bonding

As reported previously, the strongest influence on maternal infant bonding (MFA) in the regression analysis was a woman‘s perception of her birth experience (POBS) as revealed by an R-squared of 0.055, p < 0.01, which represents 5.5% of the proportion of variation in maternal infant bonding. Furthermore, the correlation analysis between POBS and MFA demonstrated a correlation of 0.234, p< 0.01. In addition, a notable finding was the POBS mean of 107.07 and SD of 18.92, which is a moderately low score compared to the possible score of 145. This large standard deviation might indicate a wide range of deliveries that required interventions, which future qualitative analysis might be of benefit in explaining this finding. A possible consequence of this low score could be related to the interventions many women experienced during labor and delivery; therefore, type of delivery may have been a greater contributor than anticipated.

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In an exploration of the three variables together, there was a correlation between POBS and spirituality of 0.204, p<0 .01, but the correlation was minimal when the two independent variables were combined in the regression analysis with MFA. A regression analysis involving both independent variables, POBS and Spirituality, demonstrated that 6.8% of the variation in MFA could be explained by a combination of the two variables, with 1.4% explained by spirituality and 5.5% explained by POBS. The reliability of individual coefficients, however, demonstrated spirituality having a significance at a level of p<0.05 when examined individually as a predictor of MFA but this significance level changed to p< 0.233 when used in conjunction with POBS, which indicates an unreliable coefficient estimate ((Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007). Since there was a correlation noted between POBS and Spirituality initially, their combined influence on MFA is possibly related to dispersion in the combined variables. An introduction of demographic variables into the regression analysis did not reveal any additional possible predictors. The remaining 93.2% of the variance in influence on MFA could be explained by other factors that may include infant temperament; maternal well-being, both physiologically and psychologically; the timing of delivery; a history of domestic violence; a history of sexual abuse; or even gravida, and parity which needs to be examined.