Genre du bébé et trouble de la personnalité borderline maternel : quel impact sur l’interaction mère-bébé à 3 mois du postpartum ?

Abstract

Background and aimThis research aims to study mother-infant interactions at 3months postpartum using the Still Face Face-to-Face Paradigm comparing two groups, mothers with borderline personality disorder and controls. We hypothesized that dyadic interactions with mothers afflicted with the disorder would be significantly different from those without psychopathology, and that these differences would vary according to infant gender. MethodsNineteen dyads of mothers with Borderline Personality Disorder and 41 with control mothers were filmed using the Still Face Paradigm. Behaviors of both partners were studied using microanalytic coding with the Maternal and Infant Regulation Scoring System. Results and conclusionOur analysis shows that both partners react to the stress induced by the Still Face episode (the paradigm is divided in three phases, 2minutes of spontaneous interaction face-to-face, 2minutes of maternal Still Face per se, and 2minutes of reuniting interactive play). Infants of mothers with Borderline Personality Disorder show less gaze focused on mother than their control counterparts; infant girls regulate themselves more than boys and mothers with psychopathology demonstrate more tactile stimulation of their infants (touch, tickle, etc.). Our research illustrates how different dyadic adaptive mechanisms exist according to maternal psychopathology and infant gender, and suggests that as early as 3months postpartum, infants are already trying to adapt to maternal functioning and dysfunctional interactions through self-regulatory mechanisms. This begs for further research exploring as precisely as possible interactive mechanisms both early in life and in longitudinal studies.