Infant Psychiatry!

[!80s Love Child!]

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Hey guys,

I just would like to ask if 'Infant Psychiatry' does actually exist in the USA? I think it's pretty much similar to Perinatal Psychiatry. Does anybody know any Psychiatrists who has an interest in this or who is currently specialising in this field?

Many thanks!🙂

 

[Chrismander]

Hey guys,

I just would like to ask if 'Infant Psychiatry' does actually exist in the USA? I think it's pretty much similar to Perinatal Psychiatry. Does anybody know any Psychiatrists who has an interest in this or who is currently specialising in this field?

Many thanks!🙂

What exactly would this entail? I imagine most anything wrong with an infant's or newborn's behavior would be handled by peds or neuro...

 

[!80s Love Child!]

I was thinking of that as well when I came across with this 'new' or maybe crazy idea over the Internet (some UK medical website). Perhaps it overlaps with pediatrics and medical genetics, and I can't imagine diagnosing a poor neonate of having a mental disease. Worth pioneering for I guess...Hmm.

 

[TheWowEffect]

Hey guys,

I just would like to ask if 'Infant Psychiatry' does actually exist in the USA? I think it's pretty much similar to Perinatal Psychiatry. Does anybody know any Psychiatrists who has an interest in this or who is currently specialising in this field?

Many thanks!🙂

I know of at least one fellowship program in US from Psychiatric News classifieds.

INFANT PSYCHIATRY FELLOWSHIP

I can't say for definite what it entails though...

 

[BabyPsychDoc]

I assume, the "some UK medical website" probably refers to British Journal of Psychiatry and their paper on infant psychiatry here: http://bjp.rcpsych.org/cgi/content/abstract/159/2/173

At very least this link demostrates that the concept of infant psychiatry is not new (the paper came out in 1991) and probably not very crazy (BJP is, after all, a peer-reviewed journal published by the Royal College of Psychiatrists).

However, if you simply google "infant psychiatry", you will have two hits from the AACAP:
http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/medica...atry_residents_fellows/_subspecialty_training
http://www.aacap.org/cs/root/developmentor/infant_psychiatry_looking_backwards_and_forwards

Unfortunately, the AACAP website also does not give much information about the training in infant psychiatry and what it entails. Perhaps, MBK2003 will be able to shed some light on the issue?

 

[whopper]

I was a psychology major in college & everything I learned about infants, perinatal development & their behavior was from psychology, not psychiatry.

I felt some of it was very relevant, however I didn't choose to get too much knowledge in this area as an undergrad. Some examples: use of music played to a fetus--does it affect the fetus? Attachment disorders in children as young as infants, learned helplessness can happen as early as an infant, the use of "handling" in raising infants, etc.

The entire field of psychology has a lot of juicy knowledge that isn't taught to us psychiatrists.

I don't know what a psychiatric infant fellowship would exactly teach. I certainly hope they wouldn't encourage medication of infants (unless someone could demonstrate that it was somehow appropriate).

 

[jay dub]

My understanding is that the field of infant psychiatry is much more about attachment theory and the infant/mother dyad. When performing infant/mother therapy the focus is establishing connection between baby and mom and working on developing a healthy attachment between the two. I'm guessing psychiatrists in this field would likely be encouraged/interested in research. I believe Tulane has an infant psychiatry fellowship. Don't know about other programs.

 

[TheWowEffect]

I was a psychology major in college & everything I learned about infants, perinatal development & their behavior was from psychology, not psychiatry.

I felt some of it was very relevant, however I didn't choose to get too much knowledge in this area as an undergrad. Some examples: use of music played to a fetus--does it affect the fetus? Attachment disorders in children as young as infants, learned helplessness can happen as early as an infant, the use of "handling" in raising infants, etc.

The entire field of psychology has a lot of juicy knowledge that isn't taught to us psychiatrists.

At our program, this is a very important part of the didactics during the Child Psych rotation. It would, therefore, be fair to say that it varies from program to program.

It was really fascinating to learn about attachment disorders for me. The above poster is absolutely right in saying that it should be a major part of a psychiatrist's knowledge base.

 

[whopper]

It was really fascinating to learn about attachment disorders for me. The above poster is absolutely right in saying that it should be a major part of a psychiatrist's knowledge base.

Agree. From my limited knowledge on the subject, attachment problems starting at infancy can be a possible beginning of a parent child relationship problem that can last into adulthood.

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Harlow/love.htm
A very good site on Harlow--cool stuff.

I'm wondering how much this field differs exactly from psychology since psychiatry often focuses on psychopharmacology. It seems that Infant Psychiatry also would not focus much on meds.

 

[Ffinnian]

I am curious as to why psychiatry would want to get into this area in the first place. I know from experience that psychiatry in the UK is much more analytically based, thus the focus on attachment theory etc... I guess it can't be bad, but this realm is very well covered by psychologists already. Perhaps it is a start to finding some common ground between psychiatry and psychology.