Introduction
Evidence indicates that the prevalence of food allergy (FA) has
increased in the last decade (1). However, the pathogenesis of FA has
not completely been understood, yet. There is currently no cure or
preventive treatment for FA (2). Previous studies showed that children,
adolescents and adults with FA and their families had low quality of
life (QoL) (3-5). However, the QoL in infants was investigated scarcely
and there has been no trial evaluating the psychosocial well-being in
breastfeeding mothers having infants with FA (6).
The first year of life is unique to the rest of life. There can be
several factors that may impact QoL in mother-infant dyads (7). Many
breastfeeding mothers believe that foods transferring through the breast
milk from mother to infant can lead to allergy. Due to this perspective,
many breastfeeding mothers who think that their infants had FA lean to
remove many nutrients from their diets. The diagnosis and suspicion of
FA and dietary elimination may cause stress, anxiety in and affect
psychosocial well-being of mothers.
The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of dietary
elimination on maternal psychopathology among mothers, specifically
stress/anxiety and mother-to-infant bonding. Our secondary aim was to
explore the importance of sociodemographic features on these variables
in this critical period of mother-to-infant bonding in order to provide
specific psychosocial approaches. The assessment of psychosocial status
of mothers in the first years of their children’s life may be important
to understand maternal stress and to maintain a new approach and
behavior to the mothers who are anxious.