Mental disease postpartum - Sociability, stranger wariness and mother's reports of approach-withdrawal behavior in infants at ten months

In a longitudinal study, 14 mentally ill women were compared to a sample of 24 somatically ill women. Both samples were admitted to hospital within six months after delivery. Further, 76 healthy women were included as controls. Infants in the psychiatric sample showed less affiliative responses and more negative behavior in the "sociability situation" than infants in the healthy sample and infants in the somatic sample. There was a tendency that infants in the psychiatric sample showed more fear than infants in the healthy and somatic samples in the "fear of stranger situation". Infants in the somatic sample did not differ from infants in the healthy sample neither on measures of sociability nor on measures of fear of stranger.