Care4mommies in Action: A Compassion-based Intervention

Summary

Becoming a mother is a life-changing event that many experience as a time of joy and affection. However, it can also be a period of great vulnerability and uncertainty with the potential to hinder the mother's well-being and bonding with the baby, and undermine the child's later emotional, social, and cognitive development. The mothers' emotional regulation skills, namely self-compassion, may be useful in protecting the mother and the mother-baby bonding, making them a valuable target of intervention during the perinatal period and a potential protective factor for mental health. Although compassion-based interventions (CBIs) have been proven effective in promoting well-being and reducing mental health difficulties across diverse populations, including the perinatal period, evidence of their impact on maternal well-being and the mother-baby bond remains limited. Thus, the research team propose to explore the acceptability, feasibility, and preliminary efficacy of a CBI during pregnancy on mothers' compassion abilities, and consequent impact on well-being and quality of mother-baby bonding at postpartum.

This pilot cluster randomised trial addresses the research question of 'Does the Care4mommies intervention work to promote mothers' compassion and higher quality of the mother-baby bonding?' Participants will be mothers enrolled in group birth preparation courses (i.e., TAU); those groups will be randomly allocated to Care4mommies plus TAU or TAU only and assessed at pre-intervention and post-intervention(prepartum), and 3-month follow-up(postpartum). At pre- and postintervention, participants will be asked to provide self-reported information on self-compassion, shame and guilt about caring, maternal-fetal attachment, fear of self-compassion, self-criticism, and mental health. At post-intervention, they will also be asked to appraise data collection procedures and the implementation feasibility of the Care4mommies; at follow-up, they will be asked to report on their bonding to their baby. Researchers expect that participants in the Care4mommies plus TAU condition will report significant gains at post-intervention and sustain them until follow-up, both in relation to the mother and in mother-baby bonding, compared to the TAU group. Also it is expected that changes in self-compassion-related variables will explain changes in mother-fetal attachment and postpartum mother-infant bonding.

Conditions

• Pregnancy Related

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Care4mommies

Compassion-focused Therapy based psychological group intervention aimed to cultivate compassion abilities to deal with the challenges of the perinatal period.

OTHER

Birth preparation courses

Birth preparation courses provided by the ULS Alto-Ave

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Aveiro University

  collaborator OTHER

• Unidade Local de Saúde do Alto Ave, EPE

  collaborator OTHER

• Portucalense University

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Lara N Palmeira, PhD · Portucalense University

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

SUPPORTIVE_CARE

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Max Age

49 Years

Sex

FEMALE

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2026-01-02

Primary Completion

2026-09-02

Completion

2026-12-08

Countries

• Portugal

Study Locations