You can’t have one without the other: The case for integrated perinatal and infant mental health services

Abstract

Perinatal and infant psychiatry has been described as ‘a specialty in search of a home’ (Newman, 2020), referring to its awkward placement between adult and child mental health services. Inherent tension comes from bringing together two distinct clinical traditions – infant mental health, with its focus on parent–child relationships and infant development, and perinatal psychiatry, with its focus on maternal mental illness in pregnancy and the postpartum. The practical challenge lies in holding the interests of parents and infants in mind as one works with a parent–child dyad. At a systems level, this can produce structurally separate services for parents and infants, resulting in the fragmentation of care for families in need.

RAS ID

52353

Document Type

Journal Article

Date of Publication

6-2022

PubMed ID

35257590

School

School of Arts and Humanities

Copyright

subscription content

Publisher

SAGE

Comments

Lim, I., Newman-Morris, V., Hill, R., Hoehn, E., Kowalenko, N., Matacz, R., & Sundram, S. (2022). You can’t have one without the other: The case for integrated perinatal and infant mental health services. Australian & New Zealand Journal of Psychiatry, 56(6), 586-588.

https://doi.org/10.1177/00048674221083874

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Link to publisher version (DOI)

10.1177/00048674221083874