Prognosis of post partum mental disturbance. A prospective study of primiparous women and their 4 1/2-year-old children.

Sixty-nine women who had been studied in connection with their first para-natal period were followed up 4 1/2 years later. Information was collected both from the mother (semi-structured interview) and her child (play session). Those 16 mothers who had been severely mentally handicapped during their first post partum period were compared with the others. About half of the women in the handicapped group reported repeated and/or prolonged periods of impaired mental health even during the following years. Further, the women in the handicapped group reported a poor relationship to the partner more often than the others. The same women more often than the others experienced difficulties in adapting to the parental role; e.g. their general attitude towards the child, as estimated by the interviewer, was more often a rejecting one. They were also described more negatively by their children than women that had not been severely handicapped. It is concluded that women mentally disturbed post partum run a high risk of poor mental health even in the future and that in these cases the mother-child relationship may often develop in an unfavourable way.