Chronic illness and infant-mother attachment: cystic fibrosis

Abstract

In order to evaluate the effects of a chronic potentially lethal illness on infant-mother relationships, we assessed 23 infants diagnosed with cystic fibrosis (CF) in the first year of life and 23 healthy controls in Ainsworth's "strange situation" paradigm for attachment at 12-18 months of age. There were no differences in distribution of attachment patterns between the CF infants and the controls, or between either group and published norms. Comparisons between securely and insecurely attached infants in the CF group indicated that, although they did not differ in measures of initial severity of illness, the insecure group was diagnosed significantly earlier and had significantly lower weight and weight for height at 12-18 months. Although the sample is small, these findings point to the possible psychosocial impact of illness and the role that psychosocial factors can play in the health and growth of infants.