The efficacy of interventions aimed at improving post-partum bonding: A review of interventions addressing parent-infant bonding in healthy and at risk populations

Parent-infant bonding during the postpartum period allows babies to start establishing a relationship with their parents from birth, and it also plays an important role in child development. As the failure to building a close and positive bond is typically associated with poorer neuropsychological, behavioural, emotional, and social development from infancy to adulthood, early interventions that support parent-infant bonding seem particularly important. This review aims to determine and describe the effectiveness of interventions addressing parent-infant bonding during the postpartum period. Papers that were published between 2007 and 2017, written in English, and focused on an intervention aimed at improving postpartum parent-infant bonding were identified and assessed, concerning their eligibility for inclusion; thirteen such interventions met inclusion criteria and analysed. These studies addressed parent-infant bonding interventions, both in normative and at-risk situations, relative to both parents and their babies, and evaluated the impact of different strategies, such as educational and behavioural programs, psychosocial interventions, programs providing instruction in specific techniques, and interventions based on neurostimulation techniques. The heterogeneous methodologies employed by the various studies failed to enable us to pursue deep comparative analyses across our findings; this reflects a limitation that must be considered in further research aimed at implementing and evaluating future interventions.