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Bonding, postpartum dysphoria, and social ties

A speculative inquiry

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Abstract

Since the late 1970s, disruptions and “failure” of maternal-infant bonding have been causally linked to postpartum depression. Part I of this paper examines the grounds for this connection while tracing the ramifications of bonding theory (Klaus and Kennell 1976) through obstetrics, pediatrics, and psychiatry, as well as in the (mis)representations of it in the popular media. This discussion resolves into a view of maternal attachment as a long-term development progressively established through intensive mother-infant interaction. The forms of this interaction are phylogenetically determined, albeit culturally and personally mediated. Flowing from this premise, Part II of the paper casts postpartum depression as an adaptive response to threat (from whatever cause) to adequate mothering, and develops an argument for the evolutionary role of enacted social ties in the establishment of maternal responsiveness.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Sociology, University of New South Wales, 2052, Sydney, Australia

    Mira Crouch

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  1. Mira Crouch
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Correspondence to Mira Crouch.

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Mira Crouch (BA) is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Sociology at the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia). Her main interests are in the interface of “culture” and “nature” in human experience. Current research projects concern the experience of menarche, and the selfhood of ex-cancer patients. Major publications to date have dealt with personal and cultural understandings of childbirth.

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Crouch, M. Bonding, postpartum dysphoria, and social ties. Hum Nat 13, 363–382 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12110-002-1020-7

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