Infancy to Early
Childhood. (Pregnancy to Five) The
human infant cannot survive isolated from their caretakers who depend on the
quality and resources of the communities that surrounds them.
Pregnancy is a very distinct critical period for human development:
within western cultures it requires the capacity for supporting the needs of a family.
Thus other community and social forces
need to converge to help in an adults’ transition to parenthood. This
transition involves the commitment by both expecting parents to gather the
emotional energy devoted to the growing fetus.
Frames of mind that orient each individual member in a
couple to expectations in which each member is devoted to each other, needs now
to include the future infant.
This new commitment often requires new mindsets. Those, help
the planning pregnant parent to prepare for the new tasks to support the life
that they are creating. This preparation brings about anxiety of performance
and may derail the harmony a dialogs of the couple.
1)
Increasing quarrels.
2)
Negativity and opposition in one or the other
member of the couple to the progression of pregnancy especially if the
pregnancy has not been planned.
3)
Many Mental Health problems that appear to arise
during pregnancy are the result of unresolved problems that the pregnant woman
or the male in the couple have had accrued the past. Many of those problems are
originated in the families of origin of each member.
Problems suffered by women that are first noticed during
pregnancy, new anxiety and depression, psychosis as a result of new disruptions
hormonal, acid base metabolism, sleep problems in the pregnant woman increased
or decreased, and isolation from significant others.
The Infant
The average infant seeks to communicate from the beginning of
his life. She/he is not a passive partner. The moment he/she first open her
eyes she seeks interactions with the environment and adults.
·
If the baby is very fussy and dificult to console.
If the baby does not develop and adaptive night day schedule or has reversed
night for day.
·
If the baby appears to fail to experience or to
express pleasure. If the baby has gaze aversion and avert his gaze in all interactions
with others and specially the mother. If the baby doesn’t smile and the absences
of big smiles and the abrupt lost of speech is and indication of severe
communication problems and is harbinger of autism.
·
If the baby is floppy, extremely flaccid and
does no appearance to have appropriate muscle tone. This is a harbinger of
later motor problems.
·
If the baby is floppy and is difficult to wake
up. The baby has very low muscle tone. Later on his delayed milestones; fail to
seat and is delayed learning to walk.
·
If the infant fails to thrive.
After the third month and towards the ninth month of life
the healthy infant’s neurocognitive and social development progresses rapidly,
this progress is evidenced by:
1.
Normal infants may anxious when approached by
strangers (around the seventh month). This is because she/he recognizes the
mother from strangers and refuses intimate relationship with others not the
mother. However, over anxious infants may have difficulty tolerating any new interactions
with new experiences and become
2.
The mother complains that she does not enjoy pleasurable
interactions with the infant.
How to resolve above problems
A diagnostic procedure is quickly
begun when parent child arrives for consulting. The first question I need to
resolve is whether the problem resides with the parent or with the infant. The
parent should expect a lengthy interview were many questions will be asked.
To help the parent we send to the
home a lengthy questioner that she will complete before arriving to the first face
to face interview. I will interview the parent relating to the child or infant
to observe their interactions to assess their relationship.
After the first interview more
questions will be asked about the parents past history and their relationship
with the infant’s-child father and/or the extended family.
I consider the continuous interaction
with the parents fundamental and primary for the understanding of early developmental
problems.
A protective environment with
responsive caretakers leads the child to committed attached relationship that
are modeled in the first attachment to the mother
Second year of life.
After the 12th month of life the emergence language increases new cognitive
interactional abilities and expands social and mental growth. She/he also
becomes more aware of his separateness and individuation from the mother and is
capable of more Joyful interactions. Also it can produce problems that need the
attention of significant others.
The preschool years are marked by the child’s acquisition of
larger skills in communication and enjoys the play with peers. If communication
is late to emerge or is absent the diagnosis of the developmental problems like
autism and autistic spectrum disorder is called for. This needs a prompt
intervention by a child psychiatrist is required.
Other psychiatric diagnosis need psychiatric intervention
like ADD and ADDH, Bipolar Disorder of childhood, Oppositional Defiant, etc.
The first three yeas of life are the foundation for
obtaining a secure connection with the self and the external world, and secure
bases for further development.
School years. During
the school years and until the
emergency of puberty (seven years to eleven) the children develop new skills
and new anxieties. The preference to play games with same gender peers and the
conflicting rejection of opposite gender peers had been considered a hallmark
of normal gender development in urban Anglo-Saxon cultures United States in
nuclear families.
Other cultural groups do not experience the same cultural
norm.
Problems that often trigger parents and teachers to seek
consultations from psychiatrists:
a)
Long unresolved and long lasting anxiety or
sadness in excess of the acute period after the death, disasters or other
situation of parental loss, e.g. divorce or parental abandonment.
b)
excessive distractibility or inattention that calls
for a neuropsychiatric diagnosis and treatments.
c)
School refusal, lack of acceptance by peers are often a reaction to bulling.
d)
Learning disabilities or other neuro psychiatric
conditions.
e) Depression and Suicidal Risk.