Mother-infant Bonding in the Brain: a Mindfulness-based Intervention

Mother-infant Bonding in the Brain: Promoting Maternal Mental Health and High-quality Mother-infant Interactions Via a Mindfulness-based Intervention

The study investigates the effectiveness of the mindfulness-based intervention "Mindful with your Baby" in women with babies between 5-9 months postpartum who experience heightened levels of postpartum depression, anxiety and/or parental stress. The intervention "Mindful with your Baby" is one of the very few interventions for maternal postnatal mental health issues that takes the bond between mother and infant into account. It is hypothesized that the "Mindful with your Baby" intervention will reduce levels of postpartum depression, anxiety and parental stress, and improve mother-infant behavioral interaction and increase neural synchrony between mother and infant brains.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Pregnant women (18+y).
• First antenatal visit < 12 weeks.
• Score above cut off on the Edinburgh Postnatal Depression Scale (EPDS), the anxiety subscale of the Symptom Checklist (SCL-90) and/or the Parental Stress Questionnaire (PSQ) at 8-10 weeks postpartum.
• Dutch-speaking or understanding Dutch.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Gemelli pregnancy (or higher order pregnancy).
• Known endocrine disorder before pregnancy (diabetes-I, Rheumatoid arthritis).
• Severe psychiatric disease (schizophrenia, borderline or bipolar disorder).
• HIV.
• Drug or alcohol addiction problems.
• Any other disease resulting in treatment with drugs that are potentially adverse for the fetus and need careful follow-up during pregnancy.
• No access to the internet.