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The Attachment Imperative: Parental Experiences of Relation-making in a Danish Neonatal Intensive Care Unit

Laura E Navne1, Mette N Svendsen1, Tine M Gammeltoft2

  • 1Department of Health Services Research, University of Copenhagen.

Medical Anthropology Quarterly
|September 6, 2017
PubMed

Insights

Parents form bonds with extremely premature infants by balancing closeness and distance. Detachment is crucial for attachment, enabling parents to navigate uncertainty and secure their infant's survival.

Area of Science:

  • Medical Anthropology
  • Neonatal Care Studies
  • Sociology of Family

Background:

  • Extremely premature infants face uncertain prognoses, challenging traditional notions of parent-infant bonding.
  • Neonatal Intensive Care Units (NICUs) often emphasize an imperative for parental attachment regardless of infant survival chances.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To explore how parents establish relationships with extremely premature infants.
  • To analyze the role of distance and detachment in parental attachment practices within the NICU.
  • To examine the concept of "maybe-parents" in the context of uncertain infant outcomes.

Main Methods:

  • Ethnographic fieldwork conducted in a Danish Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU).
  • Analysis of parent-infant interactions and relational practices.
  • Engagement with anthropological theories on social relations and kinship.

Main Results:

  • Parental attachment is often contingent on specific hesitations and practices of detachment.
  • Refraining from physical contact (touching, holding, feeding) is enacted as integral to attachment.
  • These "cuts" in parent-infant relations facilitate survival and kinship-making.

Conclusions:

  • Practices of detachment are productive and integral to attachment in NICU settings.
  • The ideal of constant attachment may not accommodate the complexities faced by parents of "maybe-lives."
  • Further attention is needed for the nuanced interplay of attachment and detachment in forming parent-infant bonds.

Keywords:
attachmentdetachmentinfantsparental experiencereproduction

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