Hospitalisation conjointe mère–bébé en psychiatrie

Abstract

Joint psychiatric admission to mother–baby units (MBUs) has become widely available, for the past half century in Great Britain but only since the 1980s in France, where these units have developed in various geographic locations and with diverse types of clinical practices. MBUs represent one therapeutic approach among others, for care and prevention specifically for mothers and their infants. MBUs admit mothers with past or present psychological disturbances (including puerperal psychosis, postnatal depression, chronic psychotic disorders, cognitive disorders, and severe personality disorders) that may make the development of early mother–baby bond especially vulnerable. Their aim is not to keep always the child with the mother, regardless of the risk, but rather to provide time, a safe place, and support for the mother and for the child to enable them either to find or recover a harmonious relationship or to prepare the child's placement as well as possible. MBU care must be linked with those of other services for the medical, social and family problems of the “mother–baby” dyad. One aim of the research presented in this paper is to describe therapeutic and preventive activities of MBUs and evaluate their issues.