Emotional Responses of Mothers of Late‐Preterm and Term Infants

Mothers of late‐preterm infants have greater emotional distress than mothers of term infants for at least one month after delivery. Our findings suggest that it may not be a single event that leads to different distress levels in mothers of late‐preterm and full‐term infants but rather the interaction of multiple alterations in the labor and delivery process and the poorer‐than‐expected infant health outcomes. In the future, researchers need to examine how and when mothers' emotional responses change over time and how their responses relate to parenting and infant health and development.