Offspring of women with nonorganic psychosis: mother‐infant interaction at one year of age

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Abstract
Abstract—Mother‐infant interaction during feeding and in an unstructured play situation was studied in the home at 1 year of age in 46 index mother‐infant pairs in which the mother had a history of nonorganic psychosis and in 80 demographically similar control pairs. As was true at the five previous observation ages, some aspects of the interaction were significantly more negative in index than control pairs. Index mothers showed increased tension and uncertainty regarding the infant's needs, increased physical contact during feeding and a discrepancy between the intonation and content of the mother's verbal contact with the infant. Index infants did not differ from controls in behavior in interaction. Across the entire first year, the Cycloid and Schizophrenic mothers deviated most frequently from controls, while the Affectives' interaction was more negative than controls' for the first time at the 1‐year observation.