[Maternal partial attachment for one of a pair of twins and the influence of childcaring environments].

The birth of twins is associated with an increased risk of child abuse and neglect. It is reported that one twin rather than both twins tend to be abused in most of the abused twin children and most of abusers are the mothers in Japan. This means that maternal attachment feeling to one twin differs from the other one. In this study, we have conducted a mailed questionnaires survey for 123 mothers of twins in order to clarify the relationship between the maternal attachment feeling to their twin children and various environmental-family factors. The following results were obtained. 1) Of 123 mothers, 8 (6.5%) reported that they didn't equally attach themselves to both of twins. 7 of these 8 pair of twins were less than 3 years of age. 2) Mothers who didn't equally attach themselves to both of twins showed significant poor sleeping condition and severe fatigue (physical and mental), compared with mothers who equally attached themselves to twins. There was a significant tendency that mothers didn't equally attach themselves to twins when one twin was handicapped. Especially, the average sleeping time for mothers who didn't equally attach themselves to twins was 5.43 hours a day, while for mothers who equally attached themselves to twins, 6.39 hours. Concerning the frequency of sleeping breaks during the night, 57.1% of mothers who didn't equally attach themselves to both of twins reported 3 and more times, while 23.1% of mothers who equally attached themselves to twins reported 3 and more times.