ABSTRACT

Many women struggle with transition to parenthood for several reasons, and with the conflicting feelings roused by love and regression. They may have considerable ambivalence about pregnancy, birth, and child rearing, such as child abuse, or difficulty facing the dependence of a needy infant, or trauma. This chapter describes an infant mental health approach in a tertiary maternity hospital, when the pregnancy, birth, and/or the infant is feared or proves traumatic, so that a mother may be referred antenatally, as an inpatient or after discharge. Women with lived borderline experiences are likely to experience post-traumatic states and to experience difficulty during the perinatal period because of the increased stress. A parent's own childhood emotional neglect is a strong predictor for number of sessions needed. It takes longer to intervene on behalf of mother, father, and infant when a parent experiences extreme states of mind, as the infant also has the experience of traumatic states.