Infants of mentally ill mothers: The risk of injury and its control

Abstract

A clinical account is given of the work carried out on the Manchester Mother and Baby Psychiatric Unit complementing research data presented elsewhere. The risk to the babies admitted to such a unit is often misinterpreted by the referring clinicians and some of these common clinical situations are illustrated with particular emphasis on the assessment of risk and the presence of obsessional fears of harming the child; the effect of concurrent mood disorder during psychotic illness; and the relevance of bizarre beliefs which can lead to inadvertent harm to the baby. A clinical system of narrative recording which was developed on the Manchester Mother and Baby Unit is described. The system is of use in collating information relevant to the assessment of such clinical states.