Anknytning och förlossningsdepression- en studie om det sociala arbetet med mödrar som drabbas av förlossningsdepression och om hur barn och moder knyter an

Sammanfattning: The purpose of this study is to illuminate what postnatal depression is and how it might affect a newborn child and its mother. We also want to clarify what potentially causes postnatal depression, how to prevent it and how to socially work with this problem. To figure this out, we decided to administer six interviews with professionals such as social workers, nurses, psychologists and others. These individuals maintain consistent contact with these disturbed or insecure attachment behaviors between children and mothers, as a result of postnatal depression, in their daily work. They were able to answer our questions regarding causes of postnatal depression, preventative work with postnatal depression and how to cure the depression and alleviate the effects on the child- mother relationship. To understand this diagnosis and the complex impact it has on the mother-child relationship, we chose to immerse ourselves in the attachment theory of John Bowlby and the object relations theory of Donald W Winnicott. These theories helped us grasp a deeper understanding of this phenomenon. The conclusion of this study was that it is very important to detect postnatal depression at an early state to be able to treat it and break the problematic attachment behavior. Otherwise, the child of the depressed mother is put into a major risk of getting developmental problems, mental and physical, during its early childhood years. In addition, the theories we used in this study underlined the importance of a secure and well-established mother-child relationship, or else the adequate development of the child's social skills and competence are at risk.