Infant Mental Health Flashcards
Describe how infant mental health fits into the PEO model
Person: There is no such thing as a baby- baby + caregiver
Environment: Relational Environment
Occupation: Everyday moment by moment occupations
What are co-occupations of infancy?
- Play
- Sleep
- Dressing, bathing, toileting
- Feeding
- Settling
- Relationship
What are qualities of good relationships from infancy to old age?
- Attunement
- Responsiveness
- Authenticity
What are the significance of relationships for infants
- Relationships impact on learning, health and behaviour
- Relational beings: brain develops optimally in context of relationship
What are examples of early attachment relationships?
- Secure
- Insecure avoidant
- Insecure ambivalent
- Disorganised
What are positive, tolerable and toxic effects of stress?
Positive -Increases heart rate -Elevation of stress hormones Tolerable -Serious temporary stress response Toxic -Prolonged activation of stress response system in absence of protective relationships
What is the impact of trauma on infants?
- Associated with caregivers affect and availability for helping infant manage emotions
- Direct traumatic experience of maltreatment and effects of caregiving behaviour
- Frightened, withdraws
How does fear and anxiety impacts the brains learning and memory?
- Prefrontal cortex: vulnerable to increase in chemicals caused by stress. Impacts executive functions, thoughts, emotions, actions
- Amyglada: emotional responses from threatening stimulus. Increased cortisol levels.
- Hippocampus: affects STM and increases fear emotion. Increased cortisol levels.
What are the needed requirements of relational environment?
- Sensitivity
- Cooperation
- Physical and psychological availability
- Acceptance
What are the damaging requirements of relational environment?
- Insensitivity to baby’s signals
- Interference with baby’s ongoing behaviour
- Ignoring and neglecting
- Rejection of baby’s needs
What should OTs identify in the parent?
- Perceived strengths and struggles, sense of wellbeing
- Current mental state (level of distress, ability to concentrate, take in new information, respond in conversations, level of physical activity and arousal)
What are parents encouraged to do when caring for their child?
- Have realistic expectations and perceptions of infant
- Maintain own mental and physical health
- Commitment to trust, responsiveness, reciprocity
- Mental representation of positive relationships
- Hold infant in mind, integrate infant experience into response, esp. when stressed
What should OTs identify in the infant?
- Areas of concern or delay with infants development that prompts further Ax or intervention
- Feeding difficulties, level of activity, weight gain
- Social behaviour, may show withdrawal or hyper arousal (facial expressiveness, eye contact, vocalisation, ability to use comfort offered)
- Ability to regulate emotions, sleep, feeding, settling consistently
What is the DANCE acronym?
- Distance: how does carer and child place themselves in respect to each other
- Attunement: detection and response to child’s cure and needs
- Noise: language between them
- Contact/cuddles: spontaneous, comfort, rough, forced contact
- Eyes/emotion: direct eye contact, avoidance/forced gaze, emotional quality of interaction
What is the wider context of the parent child relationship?
- Exploration of stressors and supports in community
- Extended family
- Housing
- Financial concerns
- Domestic violence
- Substance use
- Access and use of community services
