[Birth as a stressful experience of parents with newborns and infants showing regulatory disorders].
Parents with 0-3 years-old children seen in our outpatient clinic often report a difficult start in parenthood, with the experience of child birth overshadowed by medical complications and/or psychological stress. Besides the syndrome of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), the individual perinatal stress experience of mother/father--as a factor hardly considerated up to now--may contribute to the development of postpartal psychological disturbances in the mother and to dysfunctional mother/parent-child interactions. The current state of empirical research into this area of investigation is unsatisfactory. This article approaches this subject on the basis of research in early infant development and explores the relationship between stressful or traumatic perinatal experiences of the parents and the consequences on affect regulation of the child and relational and attachment processes.
Thiel-Bonney
Consolata
C
Universitätsklinikum Heidelberg, Abteilung Psychosomatische Kooperationsforschung und Familientherapie, Germany. consolata_thiel-bonney@med.uni-heidelberg.de
Cierpka
Manfred
M
D000223:Adaptation, Psychological; D000339:Affect; D002585:Cesarean Section / Q000523:psychology; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003448:Crying; D005196:Family Therapy; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D018730:Infant Behavior; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D008297:Male; D009769:Object Attachment; D016487:Parenting / Q000523:psychology; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D036801:Parturition / Q000523:psychology*; D011247:Pregnancy; D012017:Referral and Consultation; D012307:Risk Factors; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000150:complications*