Mother–infant interactions in women with borderline personality disorder, major depressive disorder, their co-occurrence, and healthy controls

Abstract

Primary objective: Studies have documented mother–infant interactions in the context of maternal Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) to be unpredictable and disordered. However, no studies have directly compared mother–infant interaction between women with BPD and other psychiatric disorders. Methods: The current study examined mother–infant interactions in the context of women with BPD, major depressive disorder (MDD), their co-occurrence and healthy controls. Mother–infant interactions were coded for mother and infant behaviour across a variety of behavioural dimensions. Main outcomes and results: Group differences emerged on the domains of maternal smiling, maternal touching, maternal game playing, maternal imitation, infant smiling, infant vocalisation and infant gaze aversion. Conclusion: Differences in mother–infant interactions can be reliably observed across varying forms of psychopathology. Such observed differences may be used to improve clinical treatment of mothers with psychopathology.

Keywords:

• borderline personality disorder
• major depression
• mother–infant interaction
• nonverbal behaviour