Varsha S, R. Manoj, Shruthi Babu
Pregnancy is a major part of a woman’s life that includes significant psychological bonding and physiological changes among others. Although many people consider the bonding process that takes place through the development of a child as the most enjoyable aspect of pregnancy, many clinical psychological studies of the current times portray a more complex scenario. With the growth of a child, the psychological bonding a mother feels is a component of a process referred to as Maternal-Fetal Attachment (MFA) that is affected by a number of constraining factors, one of which is the mother’s prenatal anxiety (PNA). In this quantitative correlational research, it was explored that the scope of the mentioned relationship during the most recent study. The data was gathered from the Antenatal clinics of the Maternal and Child Healthcare Center’s using a convenience sampling technique for the study and randomly selected 100 expectant mothers, aged 21 to 30 years. The PASS and MAAS psychological scales were used to evaluate the data collected by the most recent study. Statistical analysis of the data collected by the most recent study showed the presence of a significant negative correlation which concludes that the higher the level of anxiety, the lower the level of emotional prenatal bonding. The study underlines the fact that the emotional wellbeing of expectant mothers is one of the many factors that should be prioritised through early mental health screening and therapeutic psychological counselling as part of the prenatal care process.