# The relationship between the timing of pregnancy discovery and prenatal attachment and distress: a case-control study

## TL;DR

This study found that discovering pregnancy later is linked to lower prenatal attachment and higher distress compared to early discovery.

## Contribution

The study provides new evidence on how the timing of pregnancy discovery affects maternal emotional responses.

## Key findings

- Late pregnancy discovery was associated with significantly lower prenatal attachment scores.
- Late discovery was linked to significantly higher prenatal distress scores.
- Early discovery showed a weak positive relationship between attachment and distress, but late discovery did not.

## Abstract

This research was conducted to determine the relationship between the timing of pregnancy discovery and prenatal attachment and distress.

An analytical, case-control research design was used. The study was conducted between April 2023 and March 2024. The population of the study consisted of pregnant women who presented to a training and research hospital in the north of Turkey for antenatal follow-up, and the sample consisted of 152 women from this population (case group 76 and control group 76). Data were collected using a Pregnant Descriptive Information Form, the Prenatal Attachment Inventory, and the Prenatal Distress Scale-Revised Version. The chi-square test, Mann-Whitney U test, and Spearman correlation analysis were utilized to analyze the data.

The prenatal attachment scores of participants who discovered their pregnancies late were significantly lower than the scores of those whose pregnancies were discovered early (p<0.05). The prenatal distress scores of participants whose pregnancies were discovered late were significantly higher than the scores of those with early discovery (p<0.05). While a statistically positive, low-level relationship was detected between the prenatal attachment and prenatal distress scores of pregnant women whose pregnancies were discovered early (p<0.05), there was no statistically significant relationship between the scores of those who discovered their pregnancies late (p>0.05).

There was a difference between the timing of pregnancy discovery and prenatal attachment and prenatal distress.