Unveiling complexities: Examining the role of traumatic loss in shaping the interplay between black maternal mental health and maternal bonding

Abstract

Black women are more likely to experience traumatic birthing events, more likely to experience perinatal depression, and less likely to receive mental health treatment than women of other racial and ethnic backgrounds, and yet largely overlooked in perinatal mental health research. This pilot study seeks to understand how unacceptable racial disparities and adverse perinatal outcomes influence Black maternal depression and maternal bonding by exploring how prior traumatic loss moderates the relationship between depression and bonding during a subsequent pregnancy among a sample of Black mothers. We use survey data collected from 75 Black mothers as part of the Black Fathers, Equal Partners in Promoting Maternal and Infant Health study, a collaboration between the University of Wisconsin Madison and the African American Breastfeeding Network in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, USA. Study results suggest there is a correlation between maternal depression and bonding; when traumatic loss is included as an interaction variable, it produces a moderating effect, changing the direction of the relationship between bonding and depression. As maternal depression increases, bonding increases when moderated by the variable traumatic loss. This finding has important implications for infant mental health research and practice, disrupting the expectation that depression necessarily poses a risk to maternal–infant bonding.