ABSTRACT
Perinatal psychiatry is now defined in the French Public Health Code as joint parent-baby care. It focuses on parent-baby interactions, the baby's development and the parents' psychological health. "Mobile teams" for joint (parent-baby) care, the very first of which date back to the 1990s, have been developed modestly thanks to the call for perinatal psychiatry projects in 2021 and those for child and adolescent psychiatry since 2019. These mobile units complement full-time outpatient and inpatient joint care units.
Subject(s)
Mobile Health Units , Humans , France , Mobile Health Units/organization & administration , Parent-Child Relations , Infant, Newborn , Pregnancy , Infant , FemaleABSTRACT
Studies of the first year of infant psychomotor development in cases of maternal postpartum depression are lacking. The mother and baby unit (MBU) is a healthcare system available to infants and their mothers during the postpartum period in a psychiatric hospital, which provides support and preserves the parent's role in the child's daily care. The aim of the paper is to describe the developmental profile of babies of mothers with severe postpartum depression treated in an MBU through the developmental quotients. Using the Brunet-Lézine scale, we studied six-month-old infants whose mothers were hospitalized. The study population consisted of 15 infants. The mean global developmental quotient score was 96.7. A developmental quotient lower than 80 was not observed for any of the children. We found no global psychomotor developmental delays. Despite this, the posture subscore was the area in which we observed the most difficulties. It is possible that the tonic dialogue between the mother and infant is disrupted by maternal depression.