MATERNAL DEPRESSION AND SOMATIC TROUBLES OF THE INFANT

The installation and perpetuation of somatic symptomatology in the bab y who regularly attends a day-care center during the first year of lif e are well-known health problems associated with this type of early ch ildcare. Social workers, doctors and parents think it is something whi ch must be accepted if one wishes to benefit from the early socializat ion which the day-care setting provides.Must things remain so? Must th ese recurrent infections be considered to be inevitable? Although the evidence that one child can contaminate another is recognized, the pre valence of somatic expression at this age as a means of discharging ex cess excitation is less well-known. Our study proposes to explore seve ral axes of reflection that take into account the circumstances under which troubles appear when the psychosomatic organization of babies is still dependent upon the mother's own organization. In order to have their baby accepted into a day-care program, mothers must follow a pro cedure which is often uncertain and which acts as a source of tension. The personnel working in day-care centers are not sufficiently traine d to handle the emotional intensity of to notice its absence when the mother entrusts them with her child for the first time. The team has n ot been prepared to recognize and to give support to the defensive mod es put into action by the infant. This monographic work deals with two cohorts of ten children followed for eighteen months. Using an epidem iological study as our basis, which stems from the investigation of 80 7 children in Lyons, we were able to distinguish three groups of child ren according to the number of infections they developed after their f irst six months in day-care. We have chosen, using condensed accounts, to compare two children who suffered from very few infections with tw o others who maintained a high number of infections during the course of their first year of day-care. We will introduce the notion of a cor relation between the discernable modes of psychic functioning of the m others (depression, anxiety and somatization), the quality of mother-b aby interactions which were observed during the first day of day-care, and the baby's ability or lack of it to act autonomously. In order to have efficient prevention, it is useful 1/ to take note of difficulti es in affect attunement between the mother and the child when he first enters into the day-care center as well as the impact of possible mat ernal depression; 2/ to bring to light the child's manifestations of i nternal security which are more obvious among children who do not have long bouts of infections; 3/ to sensitize day-care professionals to t he importance of welcoming techniques used with the mother and child a s a function of the specificity of each dyad.