Face recognition of newborn by mother during immediate postpartum period: An observational study

Abstract

Objectives: To determine the proportion of new mothers who could correctly recognize their newborns' face during immediate postpartum period for the mother-newborn identification method. Materials and Methods: A prospective observational study of healthy mothers and infants, who delivered vaginally without complications was conducted. Each mother was let to have a skin-to-skin contact with her newborn for 15 minutes. Then, she was tested if she could recognize her newborn's face at two hours postpartum by picking the photo among other five different ones. The mother who could correctly identify the photo of her own baby was deemed as capable of recognizing hers. Results: Among 88 participants, 54 (61.4%) could correctly identify the photos of their newborns while 34 (38.6%) could not. When the data between these two groups were compared with multivariate analysis, there was a statistical difference in maternal age, adequacy of skin-to-skin contact protocol, and level of maternal education. The older mothers had a higher rate of recognition than the younger ones (adjusted odds ratio 1.115; 95% CI 1.013-1.227; p = 0.026). Also, those who completed 15 minutes of skin-to-skin contact protocol had a higher rate of recognition (adjusted odds ratio 4.209; 95% CI 1.570-11.285; p = 0.004). In addition, those who graduated from a secondary school or higher had a higher rate of recognition (adjusted odds ratio 5.518; 95% CI 1.490-20.433; p = 0.011). Conclusion: The newborn's face recognition by mother was imprecise accuracy. However, we suggest using this process for establishing mother-infant bonding rather than mother-newborn identification method. © 2020 Thai Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology. All rights reserved.