Dağ Tüzmen H, Ertuğrul B. Adverse childhood experiences and prenatal attachment in pregnant women. World J Psychiatry 2026; 16(7): 117359 [DOI: 10.5498/wjp.117359]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Hafize Dağ Tüzmen, Assistant Professor, Department of Midwifery, Faculty of Health Sciences, KTO Karatay University, Akabe Mahallesi, No. 130 Alaaddin Kap Caddesi, Konya 42000, Türkiye. hafize.dag.tuzmen@karatay.edu.tr
Research Domain of This Article
Obstetrics & Gynecology
Article-Type of This Article
research-article
Open-Access Policy of This Article
This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Baishideng Publishing Group Inc, 7041 Koll Center Parkway, Suite 160, Pleasanton, CA 94566, USA
Share the Article
Dağ Tüzmen H, Ertuğrul B. Adverse childhood experiences and prenatal attachment in pregnant women. World J Psychiatry 2026; 16(7): 117359 [DOI: 10.5498/wjp.117359]
World J Psychiatry. Jul 19, 2026; 16(7): 117359 Published online Jul 19, 2026. doi: 10.5498/wjp.117359
Adverse childhood experiences and prenatal attachment in pregnant women
Hafize Dağ Tüzmen, Bekir Ertuğrul
Hafize Dağ Tüzmen, Department of Midwifery, Faculty of Health Sciences, KTO Karatay University, Konya 42000, Türkiye
Bekir Ertuğrul, Department of Medical Services and Techniques, Başkent University Vocational School of Health Services, Ankara 06000, Türkiye
Co-first authors: Hafize Dağ Tüzmen and Bekir Ertuğrul.
Author contributions: Dağ Tüzmen H and Ertuğrul B designed the research study, performed the research, contributed materials and resources, collected and processed the data, analyzed and interpreted the data, conducted the literature search, wrote the manuscript and critically reviewed it, and they contributed equally to this manuscript and are co-first authors. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Institutional review board statement: This study was approved by the Ethics Committee of KTO Karatay University (Approval No. 2023/0005). The study was conducted in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki.
Informed consent statement: After the purpose of the study was explained to the pregnant women, their consent (informed consent principle) was obtained in writing. Pregnant women participating in the study will be informed that information about them will not be shared with others.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
STROBE statement: The authors have read the STROBE Statement-checklist of items, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the STROBE Statement-checklist of items.
Data sharing statement: The data generated in the present study may be requested from the corresponding author.
Corresponding author: Hafize Dağ Tüzmen, Assistant Professor, Department of Midwifery, Faculty of Health Sciences, KTO Karatay University, Akabe Mahallesi, No. 130 Alaaddin Kap Caddesi, Konya 42000, Türkiye. hafize.dag.tuzmen@karatay.edu.tr
Received: December 11, 2025 Revised: February 5, 2026 Accepted: March 3, 2026 Published online: July 19, 2026 Processing time: 205 Days and 12.7 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) have been demonstrated to exert a detrimental effect on emotional regulation, interpersonal relationships, and mental health, which may influence a woman’s ability to form a healthy prenatal attachment during pregnancy.
AIM
To investigate the relationship between ACEs and prenatal attachment levels among pregnant women.
METHODS
In this observational study, 367 women aged 18-35 years participated. The collection of data was conducted by means of the Personal Information Form, ACEs Scale, and Prenatal Attachment Inventory. The analyses were conducted utilizing IBM SPSS 25 software.
RESULTS
The mean age of the pregnant women who participated in the study was 27.08 ± 5.38 years (range 18-42 years), 4.98 ± 3.37 (1-24) years of marriage, 1.22 ± 1.15 (0-6) number of living children, 2.49 ± 1.37 (1-9) number of pregnancies, 34.99 ± 3.89 (26-40 weeks of gestation. A total ACE score mean of 1.70 ± 1.22 was obtained for pregnant participants of the study. This was accompanied by a mean Prenatal Attachment Inventory score of 63.53 ± 3.23. Multiple linear regression analysis was performed to identify the determinants of prenatal attachment levels in pregnant women. The established model was statistically significant (F = 115.184, P < 0.001), indicating that 56.0% of the variance in prenatal attachment was explained by the determinants.
CONCLUSION
Results from this study clearly demonstrate that ACEs negatively predict prenatal attachment levels. These findings emphasize that the psychological effects of ACEs during pregnancy need to be addressed more comprehensively.
Core Tip: It has been found that adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) significantly predict prenatal attachment levels in pregnant women. Pregnant women with higher ACE scores showed significantly lower prenatal attachment scores. Marital status, family type, number of living children, and ACEs explained 56.0% of the variance in prenatal attachment levels. Factors such as marital status, spouse’s employment status, pregnancy planning, and health problems experienced during pregnancy were found to be associated with both ACE and prenatal attachment scores. The findings emphasize the necessity of routine ACE screening and psychological support during pregnancy to strengthen the mother-fetus bond.
