Pain in Childbirth, Maternal Care, and Mind Development: A Review

In recent decades perinatal clinical psychology and infant research has shown how neurological maturation of the newborn and infant brain is due to learning from maternal care: properties of baby’s mind development are conditioned by maternal care, and the baby’s primary mental development conditions the future child and adult mental development. Research has also shown that maternal care may be modulated by childbirth pain. The experience of pain may increase and enrich maternal care, and its suppression may depress the mother’s ability in maternal care. But when pain is not borne well by the woman it has unfavorable consequences for both mother and baby. Here derives an obstetric problem: when should childbirth pain be deadened or suppressed? What analgesia should be used? Psychological studies of childbirth pain and its consequences in maternal care may be important in predicting mind development and providing for babies at risk, when we observe inadequate or pathogenic maternal care. Our study reviews the literature on childbirth pain in order to analyse its heterogeneous or contradictory aspects, due to difficulties in setting adequate methodological measures of childbirth pain. Key Words: pain in childbirth, maternal care, mind development, assessment of pain in birth, central elaborative structures, afferent neurons