THUNAIWhat is Infant Mental Health?
When someone mentions Infant Mental Health, most of us are surprised. What would a baby know, other than to eat, sleep, cry and play? The baby doesn't understand stress and anxiety/ depression like us adults, right?.
Surprisingly, babies also have "mental health" - a state that allows them to respond to their caregivers and environment in healthy and unhealthy ways!! This is a new area of research and is just amazing!
According to recent research, influences on mental health start in pregnancy, before a child is born. They continue in early childhood and go through to adolescence and adulthood. See our related article on fetal programming.
Infant mental health refers to the infant’s ability to:
experience, express and manage emotions (a crucial life skill later on);
form close and secure relationships with parents and caregivers: and
explore their environment and learn about the world.
This is thought to be a function of the child’s temperament and the attachment the infant has with its primary caregiver.
We addressed attachment patterns - secure and insecure attachment - in a newsletter here.