Daily relationships among maternal rumination, mood and bonding with infant

There is little research examining the association between maternal maladaptive emotion regulation strategies such as rumination and perceived maternal bonding and mood. This study investigated the concurrent and prospective relationship of both trait and daily rumination with daily perceived maternal bonding and mood. Ninety-three mothers of infants aged between 3 and 14 months completed a ten-day diary study investigating the relationship between daily and trait ruminative self-focus, negative affect and perceived maternal bonding, or her perceived feelings of closeness with her infant. The majority of mothers reported mild to moderate depressive symptoms. The data were analysed using Hierarchical Linear Modelling. Baseline depressive symptoms and trait rumination were each positively associated with mean levels of daily ruminative self-focus and mood over the ten-day sampling period. Bonding with infant at baseline was not associated with mean levels of daily rumination, mood or bonding over the sampling period. Concurrently, daily rumination and daily bonding were negatively correlated, after accounting for daily mood. Prospectively, lower levels of daily bonding predicted increases in daily rumination and depressive mood on the subsequent day. Interestingly, daily rumination did not predict increases in depressive mood or bonding on the subsequent day, suggesting that rumination occurred in response to perceived disruptions in feelings of closeness with the infant, but did not lead to prospective decreases in these feelings of closeness. These findings hold important implications for understanding the relationship between the mother-infant relationship, and maternal rumination and depressive mood, suggesting that disruptions in the way mothers perceive they are bonding to their infants may contribute to depressongenic processes.